Thank God for E&P vs Azumah quarrel
There is a sense in which the latest dispute between Azumah Resources Ghana Limited and Engineers & Planners (E&P) gives me pleasure.
Azumah Resources says “Engineers and Planners are yet to demonstrate their ability to fund the full development of the Black Volta Gold Project.” In what is feared could be the beginning of fresh legal battles between the two companies, E&P described Azumah Resources’ claims as “misleading and false”.
The accusation has compelled E&P to publish an offer letter from the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) whose $100 million facility it secured to complete the acquisition from Azumah Resources on October 9, 2023.
This public “quarrel” between Azumah Resources and Engineers & Planners, owned by Ibrahim Mahama, brother of the current President of Ghana, puts paid to suspicions and rumours of “family and friends” influence in E&P’s acquisition of the gold concession in the Upper West Region the official facility of which was signed on Monday, July 7, 2025.
Without intending to prejudice the outcome of any future legal actions over the matter, the sole source of my happiness is as follows:
One: This is the first time a wholly owned Ghanaian company has acquired a large-scale mine in the country. It indeed is a national milestone.
Two: The tussle establishes the history of the acquisition process, especially the involvement of the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) and the thereof.
Three: All of above prove that there are (and can be) African solutions to African problems if we are sincere and play by the rules. On Monday, July 7, Kwame Nkrumah turned in his grave.
It is a tribute to his vision and that of the founders of the African Union, ECOWAS and the Accra-headquartered African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Brouhaha
The E&P financial brouhaha over the Upper West concession underscores the fact that the journey ahead for Ghana’s latest attempts to consolidate “resource nationalism” i.e., owning, operating and retaining revenues from our own natural resources, is (and will continue to be) strewn with road bumps and thorns.
In a way, this is godsend and timeous, coming at a time when providence seems to be raining on this country, some of the rarest minerals under the earth, including nickel and tantalum, two of the gems badly needed in the green economy.
These are minerals which determine how far an electric car can travel before the next battery charge.
Resource nationalism, whose result has been more than proved, is the way to go.
I prophesied on this page two years ago that unless something close to a cataclysm occurs to halt the rate at which God is blessing us, nothing can stop Ghana from leaping into a developed economy by 2035, 10 years hence.
Economics textbooks will place us in the ranks of “West African tigers”.
Ghanaians will be shocked by what we see around us.
But pause! All of this can be achieved upon one condition: if we succeed in curbing our greed which, in the words of Kenyan Law Professor P.L.O. Lumumba, has become our creed.
Back to the E&P matter, it is good that Ghanaians shine our eyes on every transaction to avoid nepotistic “family and friends” cronyism. Remember, shining our eyes led to our blowing the lid off the Woyome scandal, among others.
In these legitimate pursuits, however, we cannot over-emphasise the need to be scrupulous with care. Unproven allegations and extreme politicisation are two synonyms for witch-hunting.
Example is what nearly cost President Kufuor’s son, Chief Kufuor, his hotel, built with a genuine loan facility from a Ghanaian bank.
Some of the allegations and rumours are born of unbridled penchant by political appointees to show off wealth.
The Code of Conduct for Presidential Office Holders launched by Mahama last May must not be allowed to be a mere paper tiger.
No one is a better advisor to the President than his own conscience.
It will keep reminding him of the huge legacy he would be remembered for if the economic “miracles” we are currently witnessing are not allowed to remain a nine-day wonder.
He himself had cause in his first term in office to complain about the cynicism of Ghanaians.
I replied at the time and I insist that nobody is born a cynic: society makes cynics of us.
Fortunately, for the first time in history, it is possible for a sitting President to see how he will be celebrated by his compatriots long after he has left office.
Everywhere, Ghanaians are telling the “good story” of the “good wind blowing over Ghana”.
They attribute it to positive measures being put in place by Mahama.
On behalf of the people of Ghana, I promise JDM: we shall continue to tell the good story as long as his good deeds continue to smell in our nostrils.
