Energy Consultant Dr Yussif Sulemana says Ghana must move from relying on returns from royalties to maximize its revenues from the extractive industry.

His comment is a reaction to an analysis done by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) that showed that Ghana’s revenue from its oil was about a quarter of that of Nigeria and Botswana.

“Ghana is just like a participant or a passenger on our own land in terms of our oil extraction. That is how we haven’t been able to maximize that, so going forward I think we have to gravitate from concentration on royalties which is almost like a lazy approach to maybe Production Sharing Agreement which is quite robust and better than royalties where we can maximize our things.”

“Until that, we can’t do much.”

The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) recently conducted a comparative analysis on Ghana, Nigerian and Botswana’s oil revenue.

It was revealed that Ghana earned a meagre 16 percent as compared to the other two countries that made 51 and 65 percent respectively.

The government recently made attempts to increase its stakes in Aker Energy and AGM petroleum.

But it was heavily criticized by some Civil Society Organizations that had major concerns over the valuation of the companies.

But Dr Sulemana argues that we ought to actively participate in the sector as shareholders to secure better earnings.

He believes increasing our stakes is correlational to our earnings.