With both countries seeking to steer their significant oil resources in the direction of meaningful socio-economic transformation, Guyana and Ghana have signed a broad swathe of enabling agreements following a visit here earlier in December by Ghanaian Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
A media report emanating from the Ghanaian capital, Accra, following the Vice President’s visit here pinpoints the petroleum and investment promotion sectors as being among those that are embraced by a raft of bilateral cooperation agreements unprecedented in the history of relations between Guyana and Africa.
The conclusion of the agreements reflects a mutual recognition of the convergence of their interests, centred as those are on the envisaged role which their oil & gas resources will play in their socio-economic development, going forward.
The commitment embodied in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by the two countries during the Ghanaian Vice President’s visit here marked “the culmination of several months of high level engagement between the two countries, including a three-day official visit to Ghana by the Vice-President of Guyana, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo,” the report from Accra said.
The Framework Agreement which is expected to play a key role in shaping relations between the two countries in the period ahead was signed in Georgetown during the Ghanaian Vice President’s visit here by Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hugh Todd, and Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Thomas Mbomba.
“Ghana and Guyana have also inked a number of MoUs in the petroleum and investment promotion sectors,” according to the report from Accra.
Prior to the recent round of engagements revolving around the visit of the Ghanaian Vice President, the two sides had been involved in what the news report from Accra said were “several months of high level engagements.”
Numbered among the agreements signed between the two countries is a MoU on Mutual Cooperation in Investment Promotion, the ‘mechanics’ of which will be administered by the Guyana Office for Investment, on the Guyana side.
During the visit here by the Ghanaian Vice President, Guyana’s President, Irfaan Ali, was reported as saying that the Guyana/Ghana partnership was “not one of the usual engagements or talks” but one to which both countries had laid out “clearly defined expected outcomes.”
Other aspects of the anticipated enhanced bilateral relations between the two countries will include “exchange of information; professional training through programmes of visits, or specialized courses by the granting of scholarships for technical and professional specialization; implementation of joint projects of technical cooperation in areas of mutual interest; exchange of professionals and technicians and supply of equipment and material needed for the implementation of specific projects; and any other form of cooperation to be agreed upon by the two countries,” the report from Accra informs.
Under a Petroleum Pact between Ghana’s Petroleum Commission and Guyana’s Ministry of Natural Resources, an agreement has been reached that Georgetown and Accra will “work with each other to achieve areas of collaboration in furtherance of the overall Framework Agreement between the two countries.” The scope of collaboration, they agreed, will focus on “legal, fiscal and technical support services, non-technical support and assistance, and any other petroleum related areas.”
