Escaping the ‘Oil Curse’: Is Ghana on the right path?

Evidence from around the world has shown that oil discovery could be a curse or a blessing. In some countries such as Canada, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and the United Kingdom, oil has proven to be a blessing. On the contrary, some sub-Saharan African countries such as Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea are experiencing what is known as the ‘oil curse’. Ghana, on the other hand, started oil production on 15th December 2010, and endeavoured to escape the ‘oil curse'. This paper critically looks at eight years of oil production in Ghana using the resource curse as a framework. It argues that though it might be a bit early to decidedly say, Ghana’s oil and gas sector currently exhibit signs of both a curse and blessing, our paper reinforces existing scholarly work that points us to the challenge of establishing simplistic correlations between extraction and resource curse. It further provides some suggestions on how to address what we capture as signs of the oil curse. Keywords : Ghana, resource governance, oil production, resource curse Emmanuel Graham, PhD Student, York University; Email : graham19@yorku.ca Ishmael Ackah, Local Content Secretariat, Ghana Energy Commission; Email : ackish85@yahoo.com Nathan Andrews, Assistant Professor, University of Northern British Columbia; Email : nathan.andrews@unbc.ca Ransford E. Van Gyampo, Associate Professor, University of Ghana; Email : vangyampo@yahoo.com