Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah
Traditional leaders of Ewoyaa, Krampakrom, and neighbouring communities in the Central Region have rejected government’s decision to drastically reduce the nation’s lithium royalty rate from 10% to 5%.
According to the traditional leaders, the decision to slash the royalty rate without consulting them prior to its approval by Parliament was inappropriate, describing the scenario as shortchange to affected communities.
The leaders have listed among other things, the impact of the reduction on the economic development of the affected area and the toll it will have on their livelihood as well as its impact on their livelihoods.
They allege that although full-scale mining is yet to begin, the project has already disrupted crop cultivation in the communities which predominantly depend on farming.
Some of the residents further allege that they have been deprived of building on their lands, denied the chance to farm, and doing many other things as a result of the project.
The traditional leaders note that they only got to know about the decision to reduce the royalty rate following a request from mining firm Barari Ghana Limited, during the consultation process when a call for stakeholder inputs was published in newspapers, which coincided with a Resource Index Dashboard training workshop held on Wednesday, November 26, by Friends of the Nation, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), and the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP).
Addressing the press yesterday, Charles Paa Grant, Secretary to the Chief of Krampakrom, called on government to halt implementation of the reduced 5% rate and thoroughly engage stakeholders.
“To cut to the chase, I think we should stick to the 10% because they haven’t specified whether it will be by next year or within a few years. If prices increase, they may reverse it or raise it to any amount. But they are insisting on 5%, which is short-changing,” he indicated.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak