The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has called for the full domestication of natural and mineral resources in the country.
It said the country must exercise the ownership right by engaging the private sector, local and foreign experts strictly through service contracts that preserved national control and maximised the benefits for the country’s industrial transformation.
Addressing a press conference in Accra yesterday, a former Chief Justice, Justice Sophia Akuffo, who is a distinguished fellow of the IEA, said national ownership and frantic management of the nation’s resources would yield financial, economic and national security dividends, while exceeding any royalty percentage offered under the old foreign arrangements.
Citing countries such as Norway, Botswana, Chile and Burkina Faso to buttress the institute’s position, Justice Akuffo said those countries had followed such measures and altered the spread of poverty.
Unfortunately, “some of our political leaders are still comfortable with the old colonial paradigm and continue to rely on outdated royalty structures that are keeping our wealth and making us poor”, she said.
Ownership
Justice Akuffo said national ownership and frantic management of Ghana’s resources would yield financial, economic and national security dividends.
“Ownership creates opportunities for value addition, increased revenue and expanded foreign exchange inflows.
“Furthermore, ownership ensures secondary benefits, including job creation, technology transfer, community development and long- term structural transformation of a nation.
“Ghana’s natural resources are sovereign assets held in trust for the people.
This principle is firmly grounded in our Constitution, as well as in international instruments, including the UN General Assembly resolution 1803 of 1962, and resolution 3281 of 1974,” she said.
Justice Akuffo, therefore, said that any arrangements that seemed to transfer ownership for a longer period of time to someone under the guise of attracting investment ought to be considered unlawful.
It said that after 17 visits to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial bailout, despite its enormous natural and mineral resources, Ghana must abandon the colonial course of giving away ownership rights to foreign companies to take up ownership of its natural resources.
“Paradigm is shifting and has shifted and ought to shift, and we should go along instead of being caught, whether it is sentimentality, whatever may be the cause, we cannot be caught in a time warp looking to the past instead of to the future.
The era of natural colonialism must come to an end,” she said.
Justice Akuffo further said the ownership and revenue restructuring model presented Ghana with a historic opportunity to reclaim sovereignty and redirect resource wealth towards national development and prosperity for citizens.
Citing the discovery of spodumene at Ewoyaa in the Mfantsiman Municipality in the Central Region as a case in point, she said in the years ahead, the expiration of multiple mining leases presented Ghana with a rare and strategic opportunity to break the mode and implement the new ownership model without breaching existing contracts.
Capacity
Justice Akuffo also rejected assertions that Ghana lacked the technical capacity, capital or expertise to manage its resources, saying the country boasts credible and experienced mining professionals with many years of experience.
In any case, she said technology could be purchased, leased or acquired through a partnership.
“Ghana possesses the knowledge, the expertise and the miners to reclaim control of its natural resources.
What has been lacking is the political will to act decisively,” Justice Akuffo added.
The institute, she said, unequivocally rejected the “truncated sliding scale of 9 to 12 per cent by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, but supports President John Dramani Mahama’s position as espoused at the UN and at the World Economic Dialogue.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh