Over 3,000 Ghanaians work in Upstream Petroleum Sector-Petroleum Commission

The Petroleum Commission, a regulatory body responsible for Ghana’s petroleum industry, says a total of 3,759 Ghanaians are currently employed in the Upstream Petroleum Sector out of 4,147 workforce, of which 388 are expatriates.

The Ghanaian workers comprised 3,088 males and 671 females with varied technical expertise including engineering, welding and fabrication, production operators, mechanics and instrumentation.

The Commission, last year, sponsored 150 technicians at the cost of four million Ghana cedis to enhance their technical expertise at the Takoradi Technical University under the Government’s Accelerated Oil and Gas Capacity Building (AOGC) Programme and had gained employment in the petroleum industry and other allied sectors.

Madam Sarah Quayson Danquah, Acting Director in charge of Localisation, Petroleum Commission, announced this at the 2023 Upstream Job Role Localisation Conference in Accra, on Tuesday.

The Commission, she said, also sponsored nine instructors selected from Cape Coast, Ho and Tamale Technical Universities to undergo ‘Trainer-of-Trainers’ programme in Canada to improve their skills while 10 instructors would go to Singapore, this year.

The conference, organised by the Petroleum Commission, was on the theme: “Utilising Trained Ghanaian Technicians to Achieve Job Role Localisation in the Upstream Petroleum Sector”.

The event attracted policymakers, captains of industries, international oil and gas companies and service providers to brainstorm on proposed Upstream Human Resource Localisation Policy and how to develop the skills and competencies of Ghanaians to takeover from the expatriates.

The policy aims to address challenges within job role localisation in the Upstream Petroleum Sector including inadequate training and skill development opportunities for indigenes, significant salary disparities between Ghanaians and expatriates and reluctance of some international oil and joint venture companies to employ Ghanaians and localise job roles.

Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Energy, in an address read on his behalf, said: “It is unacceptable at this stage of our growth that expatriates should continue to hold most of the technical and managerial roles in the petroleum sector”.

He said successive governments had made significant efforts to ensure that the country’s petroleum resources translated to wealth creation for Ghanaians.

Therefore, job role localisation was one of the key target areas for the indigenisation of the wealth from the oil and gas resources, the Minister said.

“Hence, the Government has, over the years, provided the needed support to the Petroleum Commission to ensure that the capacity-building efforts produce the needed results,” he added.

Dr Opoku Prempeh indicated that the Accelerated Oil and Gas Capacity Building Programme launched by President Akufo-Addo in 2017, aimed at consolidating existing oil and gas capacity building programmes.

The Minister was hopeful that stakeholders at the conference would make recommendations that would inform policies and strategies needed to transform capacity building efforts in the Upstream Petroleum Sector.

Mr Egbert Faibille Junior, Chief Executive Officer, Petroleum Commission, in his welcome remarks, said every nation’s greatest asset was its human resources, and it was imperative to build the capacity and competencies of the workforce, to be competitive towards achieving its development goals.

He entreated academic institutions providing training in the petroleum sector to up their game to meet international standards so that their trainees/graduates could work efficiently in any part of the world, especially in oil and gas exploration platforms.