Civil Society Groups in the country are demanding President Akufo Addo suspend the Agyapa Mineral Royalties Agreement until all documents relating to its operations are fully disclosed.
The Special purpose vehicle, which will look to leverage substantial sums of money to meet the country’s investment needs, using royalties earned from the extractives industries, will act in the national interest but be beyond government control.
But the CSOs numbering 15, believes the decision contravenes governments own commitment to the people to ensure that mineral revenues are efficiently managed for the benefit of Ghanaians.
Speaking on behalf of the CSOs at news conference, Co chairman of the Ghana Extractive and Transparency Initiative Dr Steve Manteaw said the move by government lacks transparency and public oversight arrangements.
“Suspend the implementation of the Mineral Income Investment Fund Act until all documents relating to the establishment of the special purpose vehicle and its beneficial owners have been disclosed, We sought to access the transaction document from the Mineral Income Investment Fund Secretariat only to discover that it has non.” he demanded.
“We take this opportunity to call on President Akufo Addo to acknowledge that though the Mineral Income investment and its special purpose vehicle may be legal without public input, It fundamentally goes against his touch with the Ghanaian people particularly the mining communities to cede 20 percent of mineral royalties to develop the communities.” he said.
Government has faced a barrage of critisim since the approval of the approval of the US $ 1 billion deal between itself and Agyapa Royalties Ltd two weeks ago.
The investment agreement between the Government of Ghana and the Minerals Income Investment Fund , Agyapa Royalties Ltd and ARG Royalties Ltd centres around gold royalties monetization transaction entered into under the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act 2018(Act 978).
The target is for the arrangement of to make immediately available US $500 million, once executed with the remaining $500 million to follow.
But Mr Manteaw believes the agreement which has not seen any public input yet lacks transparency hence the need to rectify the anomaly.
“Ghanaians will probably not have lost sleep once the Agyapa Mineral Income investment transaction had been orchestrated under an open and transparent regime such as the petroleum revenue management act provides’
Mr Manteaw said the Civil Society Groups are open to debate and engage government on ways to optimize mineral royalties if it is willing to do so.
“Indeed what the government is intending to do with our mineral royalty would not have been permissible under the PRMA , For instance section 5 of the act prohibits the use of petroleum holding fund which includes royalties as collateral for borrowing and this is what we are trying to do with our royalties.” he added.
