The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor has described claims by former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo about Ghana’s lithium deal as unfortunate.
Akuffo has said the lithium lease that the government recently signed is incomplete without ratification by Parliament. In her legal view, this particular transaction ought to have been sent to Parliament for approval.
“My legal view is that it is a transaction that requires ratification, it is not complete. This is a document, it is signed and sealed and delivered but it is a deal that has to be ratified by a named authority, that is the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana,” she said while speaking as a Distinguished Scholar of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Accra on Tuesday (28 November).
She further indicated that despite comments that this particular agreement is favourable to the country, the contract is not different from the previous ‘Guggisberg-type’ of agreements which have not yielded any benefit to Ghanaians.
“It is not different in principle in the substance from any of Ghana’s previous colonial times types of agreements, some call it the Guggisberg model, whatever description, all those agreements are colonial type of agreements, which over the years have yielded very little good to the overall benefit of the average Ghanaian,” she said.
Best deal
Reacting to the development at a news conference in Accra on Thursday (7 December), Jinapor said those criticising the deal have failed to propose viable options to back their argument.
“The royalty rate that we negotiated for is 10% – all mining firms in Ghana from 1957 pay royalty rate of 5%. We successfully negotiated 10%, when you go to Australia it’s 5%, Mali is 6%, and Zimbabwe 5%, then somebody says it is a bad deal, throw it away,” he said.
“One other point she made is that anybody who support this transaction must have benefitted unduly, here I am, I support the deal, I must have benefitted unduly? No evidence? No basis for that?” Jinapor asked.
“When I went to law school first year, Her Ladyship Sophia Akuffo taught me that the cardinal rule of the game is evidence, because this is brush to brush everybody who supports this transaction and more or less casts insinuation and compromise our integrity when we all know the rule of the game is evidence,” he added.
Source: asaaseradio.com
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
I will expect people like Abu Jinapor not to rebutting people like Sophia Akuffu without a strong argument. The Sophia Akuffus are the silent middle class who vote for the Npp because of the founder of the Ndc. They are in their hundreds of thousands. Bawumia can still maintain their voting position if the Npp continues to give them the respect they have always been able to get from the Npp.
Mr. Minister! What has royalty from all the resources politicians have signed away done for us? every agreement we sign, those who sign them on our behalf highlight all kinds of benefits only to realised on implementation that it had almost nothing for us. the recent one is the oil. So what did she say wrong? Other countries signed agreement that require the investor to build the processing factories in their country to make sure they export processed commodity, and also build a strong industry around the minerals. you never mentioned those countries but those who went for royalties.
This is what I hate most about politicians who are too quick to make such comparisons as a sign of mediocrity. If they bothered to keep their own counsels, they would realise that none of their case-countries has made remarkable progress worthy of emulation. However, Mrs. Sophia Akuffo's concern has exhibited a discourse that seeks to indulge the public and the experts for better inputs into the deal. And we should be happy with her criticism. At the end of the day, we all want the best for our country, Ghana.