Exactly 7 days ago, December 23, 2025, several Ghana media sources, including graphic.com announced to Ghana and the world that Atlantic Lithium “has submitted a revised mining lease for its flagship Ewoyaa Lithium Project to Ghana’s Parliament”, adding that the company “understands that the Select Committee will begin its review in the new year before making a recommendation to the House.”

This was following a December 15, 2025 meeting organized by Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, current Minister for Lands and Natural Resources with several CSOs, including NRGI, ACEP; and oddly, Ahmed-Salim Adam, said to be “Country Manager” for Atlantic Lithium.

We are saying that Ghana’s Parliament should throw out the Ewoyaa agreement, if the Natural Resources Select Committee chaired by Mr. Collins Dauda, presents it to that body, for gross violations of policy, secrecy, privacy, and ethics, to include the following:

Illegal Mining: Ghana requires billions to reclaim, restore degraded lands - EPA

1. It was totally egregious and unethical that Atlantic Lithium was allowed at a Government of Ghana meeting the purpose of which was to discuss a contract between Ghana and that company. We are actually embarrassed that the CSOs themselves seem oblivious of the compromise of security and privacy, having not seen a single opinion piece on the matter, to date.

2. Buah and Dauda should do us a favor and indicate who and what CSO organizations they identified to Atlantic Lithium’s Ahmed Salim to contact, to speak with - before, during, or after the 13 Dec 25 meeting, and for what purposes. Who is controlling and pacifying whom, they should tell us now!)

3. It is still outrageous and a mighty big shame that Kofi Buah has presented to Parliament an agreement that still limits payment of royalties to Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, at 12%, even if price should increase to, or top $3000.00 per ton.

(In Chile, royalty rates increase from 40% to 45% on lithium sales exceeding $10,000/ton – reported to be a “regulatory shift…to capture greater value from Chile's strategic mineral resources):

a. Echoing Ziad Al-Murshed (Saudi Arabia’s ARAMCO), Ewoyaa lithium royalty should be 45% (like Eritrea) or higher. In addition, at the 45% royalty baseline, for every dollar above $3000 a TON, royalty will increase for that portion.

b. Dauda and Kofi Buah can both resign their roles and cease making Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana look foolish before the world, if they both disagree.

4. The human-interest story and fact, sad as it is, that the owners of the land and people living in the Ewoyaa community in the Mfantseman Municipal Assembly (Central Region) continue to suffer even as the government of Ghana has already allowed the private company to take and confiscate their property, without any payment or financial support, without any dedicated community development funds to date, is a travesty. We hold Atlantic Lithium and the Government of Ghana directly responsible for the distress being caused to the community.

5. Related to No. 4, equally glaring and egregious is absence of any bonus, part of which could have been used to support Ewoyaa citizens whose properties and livelihoods have been taken by state fiat and eminent domain, before the first property was taken; before the first shovel dug into the Ewoyaa lands.

Every time state oil and minerals agreement negotiators fail to announce award and payment of bonus by foreign companies into state accounts, every time they fail to include bonus provisions in oil and minerals agreements, citizens have every right to be suspicious; to speculate, even assume, that state negotiators are not all above board; that some or all of them, including ministers and presidents, received and kept state bonus in the form of bribes.

6. In addition to the “value addition question”, (what percent of the minerals extracted will actually be refined or developed in Ghana beyond the “rock stage” to create employment and wealth in Ghana), other issues have yet to be properly reviewed and addressed to Ghanaians who are the sovereign owners of the lithium in the ground, to include:

a. The institutional problem of policy vacuum and betrayal where legislative instruments (e.g. Act 919, Act 703(2006), Act 995(2019) needing updates and re-adoption have continued to lag, resulting in continued rape by foreign companies, of Ghana’s oil and mineral wealth and resources.

b. Transfer pricing trap and foreign company subterfuge on cost and profit conflation where companies have multiple subsidiaries and operate in different countries and environments.

c. Atlantic Lithium and Piedmont Lithium’s own statement about the actual value of “flagship Ewoyaa Asset”.

MEMO: Since 1897, Ghana’s gold has been mired in predatory agreements that made Obuasi look like a cluster of hamlets even today, when compared with Johannesburg, South Africa. We know the reality. For generations and many, many decades, Ghana has been bogged down with predatory, foreign company-sided agreements in the extractive sector that has, sadly, during the last 10 years, begun to confirm her resources are actually a curse on Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana.

We have been at this advocacy for fair share oil going on 15 years-plus, long before many of the CSOs at the Buah meeting even complained about Ghana predatory oil and minerals contracts. Fast-forward to 2025.

In January, at the beginning of 2025, the Fair-Trade-Oil Share PSA Campaign Team, operating under the auspices of CNREM, delivered to President John Mahama several papers including our “16 Standard Prescriptions” to guide a new law to replace Act 919. Radio silence! Exactly one year later, neither President John Mahama, Dr. Callistus Mahama (his Secretary), nor the office of Vice President Jane Opoku-Agyemang, have directly addressed the issues identified in the letters, or as much sent a note to CNREM that their messages/letters were received.

Regardless, it is still our position that Act 919 continues to seriously hemorrhage Ghana's earnings from the oil extracted by Kosmos and Tullow and others. The policy, accountability, and transparency vacuum continue to allow those companies to walk away year-after-year with windfall profits under 'cash-cow agreements', as independent and informed industry experts call our Jubilee Field and other oil/minerals contracts; and otherwise touted as ‘flagship assets’ by the well-resourced and competent foreign companies, themselves.

To the point, we haven't seen any reset of the old, colonial order under President Mahama and the NDC regime, yet. Unfortunately, it appears to be status quo; or rather, a sad regression for Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana.

Which is rather sad for some of us from Ellembelle, Nzema land, Western Region.

In conclusion, our advice, counsel, and critique with respect to the Ewoyaa-Atlantic Lithium is presented in the hope that the vast majority of the CSOs’ that attended the Kofi Buah-Atlantic Lithium-CSO meeting, including Dr. Steve Manteaw, Co-chair of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI), will re-assess their support of the latest document smuggled into Ghana’s parliament by Kofi Buah without the benefit of additional review, coordination, or vetting, and suspend their support and blessing pending submission of a more Ghana-centered agreement.

At the dawn of 2026, we are still in the fight, and expect the best for Ghana. That’s all we are asking. Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana must begin to receive her fair share of Ghana’s minerals and oil wealth. We say that has not been the case, thus far under President John Mahama and his NDC government.

Ghana’s Parliament must throw out the Kofi Buah-Collins Dauda-Atlantic Lithium agreement on Ghana’s lithium deposits at Ewoyaa. All Ghanaians, regardless of political orientation, must demand a more Ghana-centered agreement that also allows a fair share for the foreign companies.

Meanwhile, watch as Ashie Moore pays tribute to late Naser Toure