STRONG LEGAL SYSTEM ADVOCATED

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi
The Chief Executive Officer of K-San Law Firm, Mr Kwame Amoako, has called for an urgent convergence of legal experts in the country to put up a proposition of law that would deal with emerging oil industry.
He said with the emergence of the new industry there would be avenues for wealth creation and white colour crimes that the country needed strong and specialized legal framework to protect itself.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Takoradi, Mr Amoako said one of the first things to do was to ensure that there was a legal system that spelt clearly certain prohibited acts in the industry that the country frowns upon.
He said it would not be prudent to review the laws of the country at the moment, but the important thing to do at the moment was to assemble the country’s legal brains home and abroad to help put out a healthy proposition that would help the country and guide the investor community.
“It is very interesting to note that people were suggesting that Ghana was not ready for the oil boom and supporting their claims with lack of minor skills that people needed in order to be employed,” he said.
The CEO said the fact was that it was a corporate body that employs skill labour.
He said in view of the local content Ghanaians should be encouraged to set up there own businesses to employ the experts to work for them.
Mr Amoako said with local companies employing foreign experts, in no time the skills of these so-called experts would be transferred to enrich the country’s human resource capital needed for the sector.
Asked if that was not capital intensive, he said, in the contemporary world one did not need all the money to roll out a business plan, saying “even the business plan and contract at hand are enough to guarantee one loan from the bank to finance itself.”
He said the mentality of many African countries enriched with minerals deposit was that they did not have money to set up therefore they wanted foreigners to travel down to set up, extract and then pay them little.
“It is about time that we also set up the needed companies and employ the skills required to ensure that we took the lion’s share of what is rightfully ours,” he said.
“I therefore call on the government of the day to create the think tanks to come up with right policies which can be made into a law to protect the country’s interest,” he said.
Mr Amoako said what the country should not forget was that the only thing that could stop the foreigners from coming to visit any pain on the country was a very strong legal system for the sector.
Regulations he said could be rolled over by international laws or regulations but if the country had a law and the investors agree to do business in the country they had to abide by it and that was safe.
He said to improve other local content; existing companies must also upgrade their existing corporate and insurance laws to be able to meet the expectations of the companies that in order not lose business.