Government lowers 2015 oil revenue target by 64%

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Created on Thursday, 19 March 2015 10:58

The new projection for Ghana’s oil revenue has been pegged at 1.5 billion dollars after an initial figure of 4.2 billion dollars stated in the 2015 budget.

The new figure shows a 64% drop from the earlier projections.

Government was forced to review its oil revenue projections following the drop in the prices of crude oil on the world market.

It had initially targeted 4.2 billion dollars on the assumption that crude oil would trade at 90 dollars per barrel.

However the price of a barrel of crude has hit as low as 49 dollars since government’s projection.

Finance Minister Seth Tekper who announced the new figures in Parliament on Thursday March,12, 2015 said it was necessary for government to review the figure.

“It is economically prudent to assess the impact of such commodity price volatility as soon as they arise in order not to jeopardize the achievement of the country’s economic objectives,” Mr Terkper said on the floor of Parliament.

The sharp decline of the price of oil on the world market continues to pose serious challenges to the achievement of the 2015 economic program.

A huge chunk of oil revenue is used to fund government’s expenditure.

Prior to the review, government had planned to allocate GHC2.5 billion as annual budget funding amount to finance specific projects in the budget.

While GHC1.1 billion was to be transferred into Ghana’s Petroleum Funds and 697.7 million to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

According to Seth Tekper, the GNPC will now receive $ 400million dollars based on the review.

 By: Vivian Kai Lokko/citifmonline.com/Ghana