Opinions of Ghanaians on the management of petroleum revenue in Ghana

Figures & data

Figure 1. ABFA allocation and utilization, education priority area, and the Free SHS (2017–2019). The data is from the Ministry of Finance (2020).

Table 1. Summary statistics for both response and explanatory variables.

Variable		Obs.	Median	Inter Quartile Range	Min.	Max.	Coding
Response	Level of information about the petroleum revenue management (RV1)	793	2	1	1	5	Likert-scale: 1 = Not at all informed 2 = Fairly informed 3 = Informed 4 = Well informed 5 = Very informed
	Level of information about the Free SHS (RV2)	779	2	1	1	5	Likert-scale: 1 = Not at all informed 2 = Fairly informed 3 = Informed 4 = Well informed 5 = Very informed
	Level of satisfaction with the Free SHS (RV3)	778	3	2	1	5	Likert-scale: 1 = Very dissatisfied 2 = Dissatisfied 3 = Neither dissatisfied nor satisfied 4 = Satisfied 5 = Very Satisfied
	Most prioritized area for funding from the ABFA (RV4)	786					1 = Agriculture (9%) 2 = Education (16%) 3 = Electricity (3%) 4 = Health (36%) 5 = Railway (1%) 6 = Road (35%)
Explanatory	Age	806					Dummy: 1 = youth participant (76%)
	Gender	806					Dummy: 1 = female (42%)
	Educational level	806					Dummy: 1 = at least tertiary education (89%)
	Position in the community	806					Dummy: 1 = leadership or privileged position in the community (60%)
	Existing ABFA project	806					Dummy: 1 = knowing of an existing ABFA-funded project in the community (17%)
	Home Region	806					Dummy: 1 = residing in the region s/he comes from (54%)
	Rural Area	806					Dummy: 1 = residing in a rural area (30%)
	Distance to nearest regional capital	806	18.4	41.7	0	122.98	Distance (km) from the participant’s responding location to the nearest regional capital
	Distance to nearest urban area	806	0	0.1	0	63.12	Distance (km) from the participant’s responding location to the nearest urban area
	Opposition stronghold	806					Dummy: 1 = residing in the stronghold of the opposition political party (28%)

We used the following sources: ESA (2020) for rural area data; Osei (2013) and Asante and Gyimah-Boadi (2004) for information about opposition stronghold. All dummy variables had zero for otherwise. The parenthesis indicates the corresponding percentage.

Figure 2. Survey participants’ location (with 100 meters offset to secure privacy), the total number of participants per region, urban areas, and the opposition political party’s strongholds in Ghana.

Table 2. Mean differences for the response variables (RV1 – RV3) and the most prioritized area for ABFA funding across the regions.

Region	RV1	RV2	RV3	RV4
Ahafo	0.254	0.442**	0.083	Health (52%)
Ashanti	0.129	0.143	−0.146	Health (46%)
Bono	0.295	0.281	−0.299	Health (48%)
Bono East	0.089	−0.116	−0.428*	Health (36%)
Central	0.409***	0.324**	−0.159	Health (68%)
Eastern	0.026	−0.246	−0.493***	Health (44%)
Greater Accra	−0.378***	−0.249***	0.089	Road (31%)
North East	0.221	0.621***	0.4*	Road (57%)
Northern	0.058	−0.008	−0.081	Road (39%)
Oti	0.336*	0.271	0.155	Road (60%)
Savannah	0.595***	0.314	−0.082	Road (58%)
Upper East	−0.114	−0.245	−0.17	Health (40%)
Upper West	0.268	0.527**	0.614***	Health (64%)
Volta	−0.333***	−0.296**	0.479***	Road (38%)
Western	−0.087	−0.016	−0.161	Road (51%)
Western North	0.401**	0.035	0.004	Road (63%)
Observations	793	779	778	786

Table shows the differences between the means of each region compared with the rest of the regions: *p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; and ***p < 0.01. The parenthesis indicates the corresponding percentage of the prioritized area for the region.

Figure 3. Geographic variation in the response variables (RV1 – RV3) at the regional level.

Note: The maps show the combination of the differences between the means of each region compared with the rest of the regions (t-test in quartile) and their corresponding odds ratios. The classification is influenced by Tufte (1983). The darker shades indicate places with lower levels of being informed or satisfied.

Table 3. Level of information about the petroleum revenue management and Free SHS, level of satisfaction about the Free SHS, and the two most prioritized areas for ABFA funding.

	RV1	RV2	RV3	RV4_health	RV4_road
Age	0.473*** (0.17)	0.69*** (0.15)	0.333* (0.18)	−0.071 (0.24)	−0.564** (0.23)
Gender	−0.542*** (0.16)	−0.653*** (0.13)	−0.156 (0.13)	0.4*** (0.14)	−0.019 (0.18)
Educational level	0.902*** (0.26)	1.421*** (0.29)	0.107 (0.17)	0.229 (0.28)	−0.625** (0.31)
Position in the community	−0.862*** (0.23)	−0.822*** (0.21)	0.031 (0.14)	0.413** (0.2)	0.164 (0.17)
Existing ABFA project	1.939*** (0.19)	1.29*** (0.19)	0.547** (0.21)	0.148 (0.17)	−0.953*** (0.21)
Opposition stronghold	0.824*** (0.3)	1.094*** (0.31)	−0.793*** (0.18)	−1.356*** (0.33)	0.384 (0.32)
Home Region	−0.6*** (0.16)	−0.609*** (0.17)	0.226 (0.15)	0.323** (0.16)	0.087 (0.16)
Rural Area	0.374* (0.22)	0.044 (0.23)	0.167 (0.15)	−0.462** (0.21)	0.422** (0.2)
Distance to nearest regional capital	−0.005 (0)	−0.003 (0)	−0.002 (0)	0.001 (0)	0.003 (0)
Distance to nearest urban area	0.027*** (0.01)	0.028*** (0.01)	−0.002 (0.01)	−0.006 (0.01)	−0.009 (0.01)
Observations	793	779	778	806	806

Ordered Logistic Regression models with Robust Standard Errors in parentheses. Table shows the odds ratio for the coefficient: *p < 0.1; **p < 0.05; and ***p < 0.01.

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