Manteaw punches govt again over Agyapa deal

Chair of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas, Dr Steve Manteaw has punched the government again over the Agyapa Royalties agreement.

This time, he accused the government of under-reporting figures to make a case for the deal which the CSOs have rejected.

At a media briefing in Accra on Tuesday, they accused government of under-reporting the country’s earnings from gold royalties and restricting access to the information on the deal communicated to them.

They claim government reported Ghana’s gold royalties last year to be $123 million during a meeting with CSOs when the actual figure according to them is $200 million.

Dr Steve Manteaw who speaks for the 22 CSOs said, “We have so far been constrained in our analysis of this transaction by our inability to access the full complement of data and assumptions used in government’s valuation of the royalties being traded.

“At our last meeting with the Ministry, some slides containing some data were presented. However, when we requested for copies, those particular slides of interest to us were omitted either deliberately or inadvertently.

“The interesting thing for citizens to appreciate is that through government’s communication it is evident that it is either not paying attention to the revenue flows in the sector, or deliberately undervaluing the assets for unknown reasons.

“When a direct question was posed to the Deputy Minister of Finance on the amount of royalties received from gold in 2019, he said Ghana received about ¢650 million ($123 million).

“The truth is that Ghana received ¢1.06 billion ($200 million) from the big companies under the Chamber of Mines alone. Government has data on the other receipts, yet it decided to under-report the numbers.

“Again, in our meeting with the Finance Ministry, we were given half-year receipts for 2019 of $72 million (¢366 million). The underreporting of the 2019 revenue which is the most significant period for revenue projection and emphasis on old royalty numbers is intriguing,” Dr Manteaw added.