The Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) has been urged to be proactive with its mandates, to ensure an effective performance monitoring of the management of the Ghana Petroleum Funds.
According to Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) report for 2021, the IAC proved weak in the performance of their mandates than stipulated in Section 29 of act 815, which states "we hereby established an Investment Advisory Committee to advise the Minister and for the general performance monitoring of the management of the Ghana Petroleum Funds".
The release of PIAC's 11th annual report was in fulfilment of Section 56 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA), 2011 (Act 815) which mandates PIAC to monitor and evaluate the management and use of Ghana's petroleum revenues by the government and stakeholder institutions.
Following IAC's mandate in section 30(a)is to also formulate and propose to the Minister the investment policy and management of the Ghana Stabilisation Fund (GSF) and the Ghana Heritage Fund (GHF) and the Minister shall submit it for approval by Parliament.
(b)Advise the Minister on the broad investment guidelines and overall management strategies relating to the Ghana Petroleum Funds and subsequently the Ghana Petroleum Wealth Fund that the minister shall provide to the Governor, taking cognisance of international best practice of investments of a similar nature.
Speaking to the Coordinator for PIAC, Mr Isaac Dwamena, in a telephone interview, he encouraged IAC to be active and improve in its mandates because pieces of advice fromthem to the minister served as reminder that revenue from current resources would not be there forever as it could run out at some point in time.
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"The funds generated are for the benefits of the current and future generation of citizens of Ghana so it should not be managed as if it is for just the current generation, they should remember the future generations as well," he said.
He, therefore, advised IAC to consider the current economic condition, opportunities and constrains in the markets and make sure that there was sufficient funds available to meet some unanticipated petroleum short falls in the future.
Mr Dwamena again highlighted that petroleum funds had also impacted socially and economically as Annual Budget Fund Amount (ABFA) funds had become a reliable source of fund for government.
Stating that "the funds have been spread all around for developments including Free SHS, assuming there was no petroleum fund, there would not have been Free SHS but now this initiative has eased some profound burden on parents".
