Dr. Manteaw clarifies court ruling on Agyapa deal; calls reports 'misleading'

The Leader of the Alliance of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the extractive sector, Dr Steve Manteaw has described as misleading the reports concerning the ECOWAS court’s ruling on the Agyapa deal.

The ECOWAS court dismissed the suit against the Gold Monetisation Transaction arrangement, also known as the Agyapa deal.

According to Dr Manteaw, the ruling was mainly centered on the benefits Ghanaian citizens can derive from the deal as far as their natural resources are concerned and not the merit of the Agyapa deal.

“Misleading in the sense that the case before the ECOWAS court was not for the court to determine the merit of Agyapa. It bordered heavily on human rights and sovereign rights of citizens as to what is done with their natural resources and this is what the court pronounced on and not the merit of Agyapa or not,” he was quoted by citinewsroom.com.

“There is an extensive quotation on the African Charter on Human Rights which clearly indicates that the matter before the court had more to do with human rights, the sovereign rights of citizens of Ghana over their natural resources,” he further clarified.

The Agyapa Royalties deal has come under intense opposition from various civil society organisations who believe that the deal sets Ghana’s mineral resources up for no good and also does not give value for money.

It is in this light that three anti-corruption groups — Transparency International, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII), and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) — took the government to the CCJ in December 2020, to an order to discontinue the Agyapa deal.

They made a case that the deal was dominated by “politically exposed persons” and also violated the rights of Ghanaians to have permanent sovereignty over the country’s natural resources as provided under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

SSD/MA