Content area
Full Text
The centrepiece of this paper is Ghana's Public Interest and Accountability Committee with empirical details of its politics of institutional choice and outcomes. The Committee is hailed as a model of 'bottom-up' reform and one of the principal reasons why Ghana is likely to circumvent a 'resource curse' situation associated with its petroleum resources. Far from this optimism, this article outlines key technocratic, political and other structural barriers that have undermined the Committee's profile as a transformative instrument in the oil industry. It draws attention to the limitations of technocratic administrative fixes imposed by in-country and sectoral dynamics.
Keywords: Ghana; oil; institutional transformation; 'good governance'; extractive industry; transparency and accountability; Public Interest and Accountability Committee
Introduction
Ghana's Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), which was established in September 2011 to 'ensure transparency and accountability in the management and use of petroleum revenue and investments',1 is perhaps the most revered aspect of the institutional architecture for the new oil industry. Many observers have framed the Committee as a case of 'good practice' that offers a more 'home-grown' and 'robust' channel for enhanced public oversight and voice in respect of the oil industry,2 especially when compared with various international 'good governance' initiatives.3 These optimistic viewpoints have been fuelled by three main factors. First, unlike other voluntary initiatives, such as the Ghana Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (GHEITI),4 PIAC is anchored on section 51 of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011. Secondly, the Committee is composed of statutorily designated 'representatives' and 'nominees' of various non-state organisations. Thirdly, government officials and the principal architects of the Petroleum Revenue Management Law have argued that PIAC is the outcome of a bottom-up process that involved extensive and open public consultations.5 However, early signals point to the fact that the enthusiasm associated with PIAC far exceeds the evidence of citizen-led accountability and effective institutional transformation for the oil industry. As demonstrated by successive PIAC reports,6 the Committee has so far operated without the requisite buy-in from the domestic political elite. Whereas these weaknesses have been acknowledged, they are often presented as compliance challenges without a deeper interrogation of the technocratic, informal and highly political contestations that have characterised PIAC's adoption and operations.
This article is the first comprehensive account of the politics...