Living through a Paradox

The lights have just gone off and I am now in battery mode on my computer. It is 7:30 at night, and the sounds of generators starting and humming now fill the night. I am in Ghana, which means the lights may or may not go on again tonight.
I find myself living through a paradox. Has Ghana not recently begun drilling for oil, one of Earth’s most prized energy sources? It produces 80,000 barrels of crude a day, pale in comparison to Nigeria’s 2.5 million barrels of daily output but certainly enough to keep the lights on in some parts of the country. Where is all of the oil going?

This is a problem which plagues all of sub-Saharan Africa, and an issue which most of the world – except the few benefitting from oil production in the region – is now very familiar with. Nigeria is the biggest basket case: despite producing 2.5 million barrels of oil per day, it is a net importer of fuel. Angola, with steel-fisted Dos Santos at the helm, is another puzzling case. How did the world sit back and ‘allow’ Luanda morph into an enclave of multimillion dollar housing complexes, US$300 meals, champagne and hummers? The two million barrels of crude produced in Angola each day further enriches Dos Santos and his cronies. Then we have the ‘lesser’ producers, such as Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo Brazzaville, each with its own corrupt leaders and greedy customers. In total, there is an average of 10 billion barrels of oil produced in Africa. But what benefits have come about from this production?

Going back to Ghana, the Ghana Oil Fund has, according to the World Bank, accumulated savings in the range of US$69.2 million. I do not dare estimate what the value of the oil extracted was that yielded this sum but regardless: there is little disputing that this is a substantial sum of money. So why not improve your capacity to generate electricity, to construct facilities capable of turning your rich, untapped reserves of oil into the electricity needed to transform your country into the developed nation your delusional Vision 2020 alleges you will become by the year 2020.

Make no mistake. The resource curse is alive and well in Ghana today.