Ghana’s Petroleum Revenue Management Amendment Act, 2025 (Act 1138) is triggering heated debate across economic and governance circles, as the government rewrites how the nation’s oil wealth is shared. The sweeping amendment—described by analysts as a “major surgery” to the petroleum fund framework—removes direct oil-backed financing for key institutions and programmes such as the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF), and the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy.
For over a decade, the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA), first passed in 2011, stood as a global model of fiscal transparency and long-term planning. It insulated oil proceeds from short-term political pressures by ring-fencing funds through the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) for development priorities.
Now, the 2025 amendment reshapes that foundation. The ABFA will no longer serve as a protected channel for predetermined programmes; instead, it will be absorbed into the national budget—subject to political discretion, annual expenditure ceilings, and shifting fiscal realities.
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“This effectively ties oil spending to political budgets rather than national priorities,” one Accra-based fiscal analyst told Accra Street Journal. “It’s a fundamental change in Ghana’s oil governance architecture.”
The Key Shifts
1. PIAC’s Independence in Jeopardy
The amendment revokes PIAC’s guaranteed funding from oil proceeds—a provision that once ensured its operational independence. Between 2016 and 2024, PIAC enjoyed an average of 85.5% budget release rate, enabling the committee to produce detailed, independent reports on petroleum fund use.
Without a statutory ABFA allocation, PIAC could return to the pre-2015 era, when it depended on the Ministry of Finance for resources, undermining its watchdog role over the same ministry’s spending decisions.
“Who holds government accountable if the watchdog must beg for its food?” asked a governance expert.
2. GIIF’s Project Pipeline Under Threat
The Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund, which channels oil money into strategic projects—such as Terminal 3 at Kotoka International Airport and the Agenda 111 hospital initiative—may lose a critical source of predictable financing.
With no guaranteed inflow from petroleum revenue, GIIF’s ability to fund large-scale infrastructure could shrink, potentially slowing Ghana’s development agenda and weakening investor confidence.
3. Free SHS Loses Oil Cushion
The widely celebrated Free SHS programme is another high-profile casualty. Once partly financed by oil proceeds, it will now rely on the general budget pool—competing with other spending priorities.
While the government has pledged that Free SHS will continue, analysts warn that linking its funding to political discretion instead of petroleum allocations could expose it to future budget cuts.
“Education is now at the mercy of fiscal politics,” said an education policy analyst in Accra.
A Trade-Off Between Flexibility and Transparency
Supporters of the amendment argue that integrating the ABFA into the main budget simplifies fiscal management and allows the Ministry of Finance to adapt spending to changing macroeconomic conditions.
But critics see deeper risks: weakening accountability, politicizing spending, and eroding the PRMA’s original intent to safeguard oil funds for future generations.
The timing adds to the tension. Ghana’s crude oil production has been declining since its 2019 peak, with no new petroleum agreements signed since 2018, according to PIAC’s 2024 report. As the pool of oil money shrinks, so too may the safeguards protecting its use.
“This is not just a budgetary adjustment—it’s a structural shift,” Accra Street Journal reports. “It defines how Ghana will spend what’s left of its oil wealth in the years ahead.”
Source: Accra Street Journal
Last Updated on October 28, 2025 by Samuel Kwame Boadu
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Samuel Kwame Boadu is a Ghanaian media entrepreneur and storyteller with a passion for amplifying urban voices and uncovering everyday truths. He is the Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Accra Street Journal, a dynamic digital platform dedicated to capturing the pulse of Ghana’s capital—its people, culture, challenges, business, sports and innovations.
