By Buertey Francis BORYOR
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has urged government to stop renewing expiring mining leases and instead adopt a new mining policy anchored in state ownership of mineral resources, with private firms engaged strictly through service contracts.
Ghana’s former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, stating the institute’s position at a press briefing in Accra argued that the country’s impendings wave of expiring mining leases presents a rare opportunity to restructure the sector without breaching existing contractual obligations.
She stressed that the nation must abandon its long-standing royalty-based mining framework, which she describes as a colonial-era model that delivers only marginal returns to the country despite its vast mineral endowment. In its place, she is proposing a system in which the state retains full ownership of mineral resources while contracting local and foreign firms to provide technical and operational services.
The intervention co
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