The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), a key watchdog over the country’s oil revenues, has been stripped of its petroleum funding following a legal amendment by the current government.
The change, assented to by President John Dramani Mahama on April 2, revises the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) – Amended Act, 2015, specifically Sections 21 and 57, removing a crucial source of financial support that once ensured PIAC’s independence and effectiveness.
The Amended Act 2015 stipulated that a minimum 70 percent of the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) – which is the portion of petroleum receipts approved by parliament to support the national budget for a financial year – should be used for public investment expenditure.
This, according to the law, must be consistent with a long-term national development plan.
It also directed that PIAC’s annual budget, submitted for inclusion in the national budget for each financial year, should be charged on the ABFA.
However, the new provision – which has sparked concern among civil society advocates about the future independence of PIAC – alters the Act, which had guaranteed PIAC a slice of oil proceeds to fund its oversight work.
The PRMA (Amended), 2025 (Act 1138) provides as follows: Section 21 of Act 815 amended – The Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011 (Act 815), referred to in this Act as the ‘principal enactment’, is amended by the substitution of section 21, “Use of the Annual Budget Funding Amount”.
It goes further to state that the ABFA is part of the national budget and its use and expenditure are subject to the same budgetary processes which are necessary to ensure efficient allocation, responsible use and effective monitoring of expenditure.
According to the latest revision, “The use of annual allocations of the Annual Budget Funding Amount shall be (a) to maximise the rate of economic development; (b) to promote equality of economic opportunity with a view to ensuring the well-being of citizens; (c) to undertake even and balanced development of the regions; and (d) guided by a medium-term expenditure framework (aligned with a long-term national development plan) approved by parliament.”
It also stated that: “For any financial year, (a) The annual budget funding amount shall be used for infrastructure development; and (b) A maximum of five percent of the amount in paragraph (a) shall be allocated to the District Assembly Common Fund for the purpose of infrastructure development”.
For Section 57 of Act 815 amended, the latest revision states: “The principal enactment is amended in section 57 by the repeal of subsection (3)”.
This development, according to the Africa Senior Programme Officer-Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), Denis Gyeyir, takes PIAC a decade backward to pre-2015 days when PIAC funding was at the pleasure of the Ministry of Finance.
“The Committee, in most cases, had to rely on oversight actors and media advocates who had to ‘make noise’ before funds would be disbursed for PIAC’s work. One does not expect that the Minister of Finance, who is subject to PIAC’s oversight mandate, would be given the discretion on PIAC’s funding.”
Mr. Gyeyir contends that the decision also reflects a lack of consultation in the amendment process, wherein PIAC itself – as a key stakeholder – was not consulted in such a major decision that impacts its work.
Although the law refers to a ‘long-term national development plan’, Mr. Gyeyir argued that no such binding plan exists, only medium-term frameworks, making alignment impossible in practice.
He noted that the amendment reflects a lack of political will to adopt or comply with a long-term development strategy.
Mr. Gyeyir further criticised government’s decision to eliminate the priority area provision, saying it undermines the ABFA’s intended.
“Over the years, categorising priority areas has allowed for all kinds of spending – often leading to a long list of projects that receive limited funding and remain incomplete for years,” he said.
While he acknowledged that the amendment’s exclusive focus on infrastructure resolves past controversies over recurrent spending such as high allocations to Free SHS, it does little to solve the deeper issue of ABFA being spread too thin across numerous projects… many of which stall due to inadequate funding.
He added that the amendment process itself is shrouded in secrecy, noting that a comprehensive PRMA review initiated in 2019 could have been a better foundation. “The issues go beyond ABFA spending. They touch the entire framework for managing petroleum revenues,” he said, warning that a piecemeal approach risks entrenching inefficiencies instead of fixing them.
The Executive Director-Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS), Mr. Robert Tanti Ali, similarly argued that PIAC’s ability to carry out its mandate of holding state actors accountable for the utilisation of petroleum revenues will be greatly impaired.
“The PRMA was promulgated and guided by a desire to avoid the mistakes in the mining sector. The current arrangement regarding the PRMA pushes PIAC back to the very space where its creation was meant to avoid,” he observed.
“Government is failing to think outside the box when it comes to the utilisation of petroleum revenues. It is consumed by a strong desire to use petroleum revenues for prosecuting its Big Push agenda, without realising the long-term harm it is doing to other key sectors of the economy that have traditionally relied on petroleum revenues. Ultimately, Ghanaians will be worse for it, sadly,” he stated.
PIAC has yet to officially comment on the latest development, despite the recent launch of its 2024 Annual Report.
According to the report by Metro TV Ghana today, a tragic incident has shocked the town of Takoradi in the Western Region of Ghana, where a father, Kwame Asare, allegedly strangled his 13-year-old son, Kofi Asare, to death after the boy refused to attend church.
