Aker Energy Confirms Akufo-Addo, Bawumia Misinformation About 335 AOGC Training

Aker Energy, a supposed sponsor of the Accelerate Oil and Gas Capacity building (AOGC) program has exposed President Akufo Addo and Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia over claims they trained some 335 beneficiaries under the programme.

Responding to the story on the pro-government Asaase Radio FM station, Aker, together with the Petroleum Commission, confirmed that indeed only five people have been trained in the four years that the program has existed.

And the five people were supposedly trained with funds from Baker Hughes, and not the US$4.5million that the government had flaunted during the 2020 election campaign as training money for 335 beneficiaries.

“An initial commitment from Aker Energy of US$4.5 million is yet to be disbursed due to a change in the scope of the AOGC” AKER sought to explain away.

The Kadija Amoah-led Energy Company also claimed that the reason things have not gone as planned after the AOGC was set up in 2017 is that the scope of the project has changed.

It was not President Akufo-Addo alone who sold the claim for votes; his Vice, Mahamudu Bawumia, had listed the training of 335 beneficiaries under the AOGC as one of the supposed achievements of the government on its delivery tracker.

Also, the Petroleum Commission had claimed at a Local Content Fair in November 2018 that it was undertaking more technical training with the objective of training 1000 youth per year.

Then, in the NPP’s 2020 manifesto, it was touted on page 75 that 335 Ghanaian youth are receiving training under the AOGC’s oil and gas skills module funded by AKER Energy’s $4.5million (and Baker Hughes $250k) totaling $4.7m.

But as Aker Energy confirms, these claims were false, insisting that no such training has taken place under its auspices and that it has not disbursed any US$4.5million towards any such project.