Dreams of Oil Wealth, Tinted by Fear

In Axim, fisherman Kwabena Bassaw, 27, said, "If only they would set up some company where most of the youths get jobs, then we don't anticipate anything [bad] happening."

Ahmed, the college graduate, added a moment later: "Everything now lies in the hands of the leaders. . . . Even prior to the discovery of the oil, our leaders have not been truthful to us."

Bassaw replied, "Unless the leaders are truthful to us, we will not see progress."

Down the coast from Axim, near the border with Ivory Coast, the tiny fishing village of Mangyea has a few road signs erected by an oil company, which has an underused refinery facility on the town's outskirts. But little else has changed. Villagers live in thatch huts built on sand. They eat what they catch and relieve themselves on the beach. Pigs wander in the village garbage pile, munching away. The village has yet to be wired for electricity. "They said they will do it, but nothing has been done," said Kwesi Zamnama, 45, a fisherman.

The gap between the expectations created by the oil discovery and the likely reality has been a source of pressing concern to the region's traditional ruler, Paramount Chief Awulae Annor Adjaye III, whose authority runs roughly in parallel with government offices. (He is not directly related to Adjaye the economist.)

Adjaye, who is cordial but formal, has been collecting stacks of paperwork about oil development in Ghana. He also has become a prominent regional spokesman on the issue, motivated by fear that his people could be easily overlooked in the rush to cash in on the discovery. He said newcomers lured by the burgeoning oil industry will bring crime, corruption, prostitution and a spike in AIDS cases that will take well-funded government agencies to manage.

"We should not just talk about it as this is a national asset . . . this is for the government," he said, "and forget about the immediate needs of the people along the coastal littoral."

Adjaye has some suggested solutions: 10 percent of the government's take from oil revenue should go to the coastal region, and a fair share of industry employees must come from here as well. He also wants refineries built, to create more jobs and to allow Ghana to sell a finished product, gasoline, rather than just the raw material, oil, as has been tradition in Africa.

But Adjaye's ambitions rise beyond such practical but mundane endeavors. To ensure that the development made possible by oil wealth is spread more evenly, he would like to see the creation of an entirely new city.

"The things that are put in this city should be equal to any city in the world," Adjaye said.

There is historical precedent for such things, he noted, but the cities built by Africa's natural riches were not here; they were in Europe, whose colonial profits fattened many capitals. "They have harnessed all these resources here and taken them to Britain to build their skyscrapers," Adjaye said.

As the tussle over oil wealth heightens within different levels of government, and among regions, cautionary voices are rising as well. Ghana's democracy, though among the most respected in Africa, is not so old, they warn.

The former military dictator, Jerry Rawlings, was still in power as recently as early 2001. Corruption, hunger, unequal development -- all the things Ghanaians see as the ill effects of oil in Nigeria and elsewhere -- have also occurred in Ghana during its 51 years as an independent nation. In Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2007, Ghana ranked 69 out of 180, in an undistinguished middle zone that also includes Brazil and India.

Few here doubt that a burgeoning oil industry will present far more opportunities for graft should Ghana not develop strict, transparent systems to monitor oil revenue and punish abuses.

"It's good we are getting it when we are getting it, because we have this burgeoning democratic experience," said Adjaye, the economist. "It's coming at a time when it's likely to be spent better than it would before. The timing is right."