Govt must build trust in Agyapa Royalty Agreement—Hene Kwarpong

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Songhai Group, Hene Kwarpong, has postulated that the Agyapa Royalties Agreement is a good initiative introduced by the government.

However, he noted that the government must build trust among the citizenry in order to get them to appreciate the benefit that it comes with.

“Agyapa is fine but how do we do it to generate trust?” he quizzed.

The Agyapa deal received stiff opposition from civil society groups and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) after the critics said the deal was bad.

Following the public uproar, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ordered that the deal be withdrawn from Parliament for further works to be done on it.

The President said in his first state of the nation address in in his second term that the Agyapa deal will be back to Parliament.

Touching on the news that Ghana has overtaken South Africa in gold production, Mr Kwarpong noted that it is good news but the development had the propensity of rather creating challenges for the West African nation.

He explained that the mining companies doing well in the country thereby assisting and supporting the country to leapfrog South Africa, are all South African companies which meant whatever proceeds or value they made in the country would be repatriated to their mother country.

“Ghana is now the leading producer of gold, we have passed South Africa and other African countries which is great, and the challenge is that, it is actually quite a bigger problem because the only reason why Ghana is largest producer is because two big South African companies are doing more in Ghana.

“So, if you actually take the value that we get in Gold as a country, it is actually way down, all we are doing is we are digging out the gold  for others to then create value along the whole value chain all the way to the jury and the central bank .

“We really should try to step away from the obsession and really understand that when it comes to it, we have almost about 1000 metric tonnes of gold in the ground and there are almost eight countries that have more than we do.-3news.com