Ghana-Ivory Coast arbitration ‘to be reasonably expensive’

National Coordinator of the Ghana Maritime Boundary Secretariat Kwame Fordjour Mfodwo has admitted that the legal proceedings initiated by Ghana under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) against La Cote d’Ivoire will cost the country “a few millions of dollars”.

“It will be reasonably expensive,” he stated.

Mr Mfodwo, however, chipped in that the expenses that would be involved in the arbitration will be a minute fraction of the commercial benefits Ghana stands to gain from exploration of oil within the area under litigation.

The maritime expert was speaking on TV3’s Hot Issues on Saturday, September 27 when he made the observations.

He assured that Ghana will stay within budget during the three-year litigation at the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea.

He stated that a 30-member team of professionals will be in charge of the litigation and will be remunerated as per international standards.

Attorney General and Minister of Justice Marietta Brew Appiah-Opong will lead Ghana’s team with international maritime lawyers Professor Philippe Sands QC and Martin Tsamenyi as part of the team.

A group of cartographers will also be hired to draw the maritime boundaries, Mr Mfodwo said.

He said Ghana’s team is made up of the best Anglophone litigants on maritime issues.

They have won cases for Bangladesh, Peru and some were part of the ARA Libertad case involving Ghana and Argentina, he cited.

Mr Mfodwo continued that the Jubilee Fields is safe from the litigation, but it is the newly discovered TEN Fields that is within the area under dispute.

Meanwhile, though yet to name an arbitrator, Ivory Coast says it will file a formal complaint against Ghana over the suit.

“We will take this before the competent jurisdiction, but we are not going to say more for the moment,” Bruno Kone, a spokesperson of the Ivorian government told Reuters last Friday.