Ghana is on the verge of repeating a painful history: turning its most promising natural resource into yet another story of lost opportunity, weak leadership, and communities sacrificed on the altar of foreign investment.
The government’s decision to slash the lithium royalty rate from 10% to 5% at the request of Barari Ghana Limited — is not just an economic miscalculation. It is a political failure, a moral failure, and a betrayal of the very communities whose lands are being taken in the name of national development.
For months, government officials have touted lithium as Ghana’s “new gold,” the mineral that will transform the economy and launch the country into the global clean-energy supply chain. Yet, at the first sign of pressure from a foreign mining firm complaining about global price drops, the state buckles and cuts the country’s share in half.
Where is the courage?
Where is the consistency?
Where is the leadership?
A Consultation Process That Wasn’t a Consultation
It is nothing short of scandalous that the chiefs of Ewoyaa, Krampakrom, and surrounding communities only learned about the so-called “consultation” through a newspaper notice. Communities whose livelihoods have already been disrupted; farmers who have been barred from their own lands since last year; families who cannot farm, build, or make a living all kept in the dark, while decisions that affect their future are taken in Accra’s conference rooms.
This is not consultation. It is box-ticking. It is disrespect.
And it exposes a government far more attentive to corporate pressure than to its own citizens.
A 5% Royalty: Bargain Sale of Ghana’s Future
Reducing the royalty to 5% does not just weaken the country’s revenue position — it cripples the development expectations of affected communities. Schools, clinics, access roads, restoration of livelihoods — all depend on a fair share of mining revenue. Cutting that revenue in half at the starting line is a reckless gamble and an insult to the people whose lives are being upended.
The message to communities is clear:
Your suffering is negotiable. Your development is optional. Your land is expendable.
The Lithium Project Already Hurting Before It Begins
Residents’ testimonies are damning: they’ve been stopped from farming for almost a year. Their lands have been fenced off. Their livelihoods have evaporated. Yet compensation remains unanswered, and government communication has been nonexistent.
How is it that a mining project that has not yet begun production has already impoverished the people it claimed it would uplift?
This is how resource curses begin: one bad decision, one compromised negotiation, one community left unheard.
Ghana Cannot Afford Another Resource Tragedy
The lithium sector is not just another mining project — it is the mineral of the future, the backbone of electric vehicles and global energy transition. Countries with far less potential are negotiating fiercely for better national returns. But Ghana, once again, appears too eager to please investors and too slow to defend its own interests.
If government continues on this trajectory, lithium will join gold, bauxite, manganese, and oil on the long list of missed opportunities.
A Final Word: Listen to Ewoyaa Before It’s Too Late
The chiefs and residents of Ewoyaa and Krampakrom are not asking for charity. They are asking for dignity, fairness, and transparency. They are asking government to negotiate like a sovereign state — not a desperate client.
Restoring the 10% royalty is not just a technical correction; it is a statement that Ghana values its people and its future more than the demands of a single company.
Government must choose.
Either it stands with its people — or it repeats the failures that have kept resource-rich Ghana poor.
