Sophia Akuffo
Government has been urged to review existing laws that vests mineral resources in the President rather than the State in order to prevent contracts skewed in favour of foreign companies.
A former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, who made the call during a press conference at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), in Accra said Ghana needs to adopt modern best practices that will provide a fair share of the resource rent to the country rather than foreign mining firms.
She said “There is a need to take a critical look at Article 257(6) of the Constitution which vests all minerals in the country in the President, as this could be the mother of all our natural resource problems. An alternative could be to vest the minerals rather in the State.”
President Mahama recently announced plans to review all agreements governing Ghana’s extractive sector.
Madam Sophia Akuffo who commended the President for his intentions however, urged him to take additional measures to review Ghana’s mining laws in order to generate revenue needed for the country’s development.
She said Ghana has been endowed with abundant natural resources in the form of minerals, petroleum, gas, salt, forests among others potentially worth trillions of dollars representing low-hanging fruits that the country can harness to accelerate its development and eradicate poverty within a generation.
According to her, these natural resources have been exploited under concession leases that give exclusive rights to foreign firms ‘who keep disproportionately-high shares of the products and pay Ghana paltry amounts in the form of royalties and taxes’
She explained that leaders however tend to rationalize the decision to allow foreign firms to keep the lion’s share of the natural resource products on the basis of Ghana’s lack of exploration and development capital and expertise.
She further mentioned that the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) should contain a provision that moves the management of some mineral resources to local government to enable district assemblies to be directly involved in the management of the resources.
“The Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act, 2016 (Act 919) should be reviewed to specify the need to shift from concession/royalty arrangements to production-sharing arrangements in natural resource contracts,” she added.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah