Lands Minister must move from colonial ways of contractual agreement – Adjei Darko on Lithium lease

The Chairman of the Council of Elders for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Bono Region, Adjei Darko has advised the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources to negotiate a better deal for Ghana in the recent lithium lease with Barari DV company.

Mr Adjei Darko, a former Minister for Lands and Natural Resources in an interview on a Sunyani base Suncity 97.1 Fm on Friday, December 8, 2023 and monitored by Masemtvgh.com described the current agreement as ”colonial” and urged the Minister to consult further to get a better deal for Ghana this time.

”We continue to sign contracts as were done in the colonial days and that nothing seems to improve in our various mineral contracts we sign as a country” he told the host, Mr Mark Abisah.

Mr Adjei Darko, who has been a former Minister for Local Government under the Kufour administration and a former Member of Parliament for Sunyani West brushed aside the minister’s assertion that his ten (10%) percent contract agreement with Barari DV for Ghana’s first lithium lease must be celebrated and recommended since that is the highest contract agreement in the mineral sector for Ghana.

Responding to this assertion, the former Minister for Lands and Natural Resources likened it to a scenario where two students failed to obtain a pass mark but one claims to have perform better than the other.

”I heard the Minister in his media briefing on Thursday, December 7, saying that this current agreement is the highest percent in our mineral contracts and that we must appreciate it. Though, this ten (10%) percent is above what we have with Newmont and Anglo Gold Ashanti but the lithium agreement cannot be any better than that of the others”

”The comparison by the Minister is like two students who couldn’t meet a pass mark in an exams and one claiming to do better than the other. When you score thirty (30%) percent in an exams, you have failed and when you score thirty five (35%) percent, you have also failed. It is therefore shocking for the one who scored thirty five (35%) to claim that he performed better than the one who scored thirty (30%) percent though they have all failed.

According to Mr Adjei Darko, Ghana must take charge of its mineral resources and that the Minister must lead the country into a contract that will make Ghana either the majority shareholder or the overall owner of the lithium lease in the next five years.

”If we cannot mobilise the resources to mine the lithium ourselves, then the contract must be to ‘invest, own and transfer’ within the first five years while giving ten (10%) of royalties to the country” he stated.

Mr Adjei Darko further blamed our educational system for training Ghanaians in the mining sector and urged the government to roll out mining programs at the junior high school through to the tertiary to train students to take up the mining sector of the country.