Ghana’s leading opposition, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), asked the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, –during his two-day visit to the country– to review the terms of a deal between the Italian oil company, ENI and the government of Ghana to ensure that both countries benefit fairly, SaharaReporters informed. The statement says that the ENI-Sankofa 20-year gas deal for the exploitation of the Offshore Cape Three Points Block (OCTP), an integrated oil and gas project, does not give Ghana value for money.

Among several issues raised, the NPP said the government of Ghana’s provision of financial terms to ENI and its partners of 20% return on investment, instead of the normal 12.5%, is an unusually high rate for commercial transactions of this nature, especially as Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) assumes all the risk in the project, according to CitifmOnline. The statement also challenged the figures put forward as the cost of the project, comparing it to other more productive and cheap drilling sites.

In 2015, Ghanaian President, John Dramani Mahama, announced a $7b deal in the pipeline between the government and Italy’s largest oil and gas company, which he said was to boost Ghana’s gas supplies to secure the energy sector.