Mahama Declares War On ‘Agyapa’

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has not relented in its nonnegotiable resistance against the  ‘Agyapa Royalties deal’ and the party would continue to do all within its means to oppose it vigorously, former President  John Dramani Mahama announced Sunday evening.

“We remain opposed to the Agyapa deal. As I emphasized in my presentation on Ghana at a Crossroads, Government must clarify reports which are rife in the investment community that it intends to use the Heritage Fund as collateral to raise a US$2 billion loan from a consortium of banks.

“We wish to serve notice that if this turns out to be true, we in the NDC will oppose it vigorously in the same way that we oppose the Agyapa deal.

“We cannot support the collateralization of every single source of future revenue just to finance today’s consumption”, John Dramani Mahama noted on his officially verifies facebook page Sunday evening.

The NDC has consistently been against the Agyapa Royalties deal and the renewed warning from John Mahama may have been sparked by very recent public comments by Finance Minister Ken Ofori Atta suggesting a return of the botched deal.

There are also reports that Minerals Income Investment Fund was redesigning a strategy for listing the Agyapa Royalties on the London Stock Exchange and the Ghana Stock Exchange

Speaking at a press briefing last  Thursday 12 May, Ken Ofori-Atta noted:  “My firm philosophical belief really is that the capital markets are meant for something that will lead us to equity resources and we are not leveraging on it. Therefore, it is not the question of whether monetization of mineral royalties or listing of the company is bad or good.”

Ofori-Atta said, “It is good because that is how you raise the resources. The question is the process of doing that. If you have a problem with the process just articulate it, let’s cure it but let us not drop something that will be good for us that will reduce our debt exposure. So those are two very different questions. How best to do it as opposed to, don’t do it. My mind is still there, I know the President has mentioned something about that going through the AG, Parliament to do that [Agyapa deal].”

The Nana Akufo-Addo led Government set up Agyapa Royalties Limited to securitize Ghana’s gold royalties under an arrangement where  the country  would own 51 per cent and the remaining shares would be listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile  Dennis Edward Aboagye, Director of Local Hovernment, Decentralisation and Rural Development (LGD&RD) at the Office of the President has said that the Agyapa Royalties deal has hugely been misunderstood.

Speaking on Asaase Radio’s news analysis and current affairs show – The Forum – on Saturday (14 May), Dennis Edward Aboagye  opined that  the discussions on the  Agyapa Royalties deal has been miscommunicated  and therefore  misunderstood by a lot of people, perhaps through a deliberate twist of the facts by political opponents and opponents to the principle.

“Because if you scrutinise the Agyapa deal very well and look at it critically, you’ll realise that there’s nothing untoward in there, there’s nothing bad in there. It is simply to say that let’s as much as possible find the resources that we need from that particular sector now to be able to provide development to our people and also help us get a lot more stake in the mining sector”, Dennis Edward Aboagye noted.

He added: “obviously, if you look at the objectives of the Agyapa deal, one of them is the fact that we’ll be able to get the needed funds to also invest in the mining sector and increase our revenue from that space.”