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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned Ghana risks suffering immeasurable economic damage should an oil spillage occur.
According to the EPA, the damage would have a direct impact on the country’s revenue, tourism and fishing industry.
Speaking to Citi business News at the sidelines of the inauguration of the National Spill Contingency Plan Working Groups, the Deputy Executive Director of the EPA, John Pomah warned that the economic effect of an oil spillage will be devastating.
“The economic effects will be very serious because most oil spillages destroy a lot of the ecology. When there is an oil spill, all the coastal resources get affected, fisheries can be adversely affected,” he said.
He cited for example that economic activities of fishermen will be adversely affected since most of them depend on fishing as their main occupation.
“You know many of our coastal communities depend on fishing so that’s one of the main things. There are a lot of ecological benefits of the coastal area, many of the animals and also some birds that are of importance to Ghana as people come from abroad as tourists to come and watch some of the birds that we have on our coast,” he said.
By this, he stated that a spillage will affect the Tourism Industry since the coastlines are important sites of the country that attract foreigners.
“Many of them will be affected if there is something of that nature. The economic impact will be quite dramatic if we are not able to control it very quickly,” he said.
Prescribing some recommendations, Mr. Pomah called for a strict adherence to the rules and regulation governing the oil and gas industry to minimize a spillage.
He also called for the need to put in contingency measures to minimize the impact of an oil spillage in the future.
Source: http://citibusinessnews.com/index.php/2016/11/01/oil-spillage-could-adversely-affect-ghanas-economy-epa/