Business News of Wednesday, 16 August 2023
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye, has kicked against claims made by private legal practitioner Gabby Asare Otchere Asare-Darko on the controversial Agyapa Royalties deal.
Gabby, in a post via Twitter on August 15, called out the Civil Society Organisations for their involvement in taking the gold transaction agreement to the ECOWAS Court, yet have been mute since the Court determined the deal was not corrupt.
Benjamin Boakye in his response to Gabby’s post emphasized that not all CSOs who were against the Agyapa deal, presented their case before ECOWAS Court.
He further suggested that the ECOWAS Court would not have known that “the same lawyers that cooked the MIIF Act were the lawyers behind Agyapa”.
“Parliament that passed the MIIF act could not anticipate the trickery in the eventual sale of 49% of royalty,” Benjamin Boakye added.
See Ben Boakye's response to Gabby below:
1. It's not every CSO against Agyapa that was in court.
— Benjamin Boakye (@benboakye) August 15, 2023
2. The court would not know that the same lawyers that cooked the MIIF Act were the lawyers behind Agyapa.
3. Parliament that passed the MIIF act could not anticipate the trickery in the eventual sale of 49% of royalty https://t.co/h8sUkZfObJ
4. You were selling 49% of gold royalties forever, valued at $500m.
— Benjamin Boakye (@benboakye) August 16, 2023
5. Since the aborted efforts, Ghana has made more than $500m for the share you were selling forever.
6. There ars about 5 pipeline projects that would’ve been part of the transaction to benefit the investors.
10. Parliament is not the only stakeholder in governance. Merely walking through it doesn't make a decision right. Note that most of what we are today has the seal of Parliament. @BBSimons
— Benjamin Boakye (@benboakye) August 16, 2023
7. The pipeline project will generate about $200m annually. It would have been shared with the investors.
— Benjamin Boakye (@benboakye) August 16, 2023
8. You committed to locking the royalty regime at 5%, selling the sovereignty of Ghana to regulate its fiscal take in future,
9. CSOs doubt that these risks were not known.
It's a brave thing to do it for the country and resist the annexers. TOR’s MD preferred to exit, even if they won't prefer resignation. Still dignifying. @BBSimons
— Benjamin Boakye (@benboakye) August 12, 2023