Civil society organisations have called for urgent legislative reforms to the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF), warning that a 2025 amendment that reduced the Fund’s share of mineral income to just two percent could hollow out its capacity to function as a genuine sovereign investment vehicle.
The demands emerged from a CSO roundtable convened by MIIF in Accra on Friday, April 17, 2026, at which extractive sector advocates, policy think tanks and governance specialists examined the updated provisions of the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act, 2018 (Act 978), as amended by Act 1137.
The core concern centred on the structural shift introduced by the amendments. Under the original Act 978, mineral revenues comprising royalties and dividends were paid directly into an account controlled by MIIF, allowing the Fund to retain a substantial portion for investment while allocating shares to other statutory bodies. Under the revised framework, all mineral income must first be deposited into a minerals income holding account managed by the Ministry of Finance and the Controller and Accountant-General, with only two percent subsequently disbursed to MIIF and the remainder transferred into the Consolidated Fund.
Emmanuel Akwetey, Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), questioned whether the Fund could remain operationally credible under this arrangement. Analysts have previously noted that with such a limited share of revenues, MIIF’s ability to build a robust investment portfolio, generate meaningful returns, and serve as a buffer against commodity price volatility is severely restricted, effectively repositioning it from a sovereign wealth fund to a marginal investment vehicle.
Franklin Cudjoe, founding president of IMANI Africa, pressed on accountability mechanisms, citing MIIF’s investment in Asante Gold Corporation’s gold trading as a case requiring stronger monitoring and evaluation to assess outcomes and inform decision-making.
In response, MIIF’s Chief Finance Officer David Awuah Mensah acknowledged that some investments had encountered challenges and confirmed the Fund was taking corrective action. “Where we need to exit, we have exited,” he said, adding that efforts were underway to recover the funds involved.
The roundtable also produced a call for a governance framework to guide MIIF with a well-defined structure that reduces executive control, and a recommendation for a Legislative Instrument to correct what participants described as defects in the current Act. CSO representatives also called for politicians to be kept out of the Fund’s operations.
The governance debate unfolded against a backdrop of record financial performance. MIIF recorded total mineral royalty inflows of GH₵5.43 billion in 2025, a 10.8 percent increase over the GH₵4.91 billion collected in 2024, the highest annual figure in the institution’s history. CEO Justina Nelson attributed the performance to disciplined enforcement, strategic oversight and renewed institutional commitment, and disclosed that first-quarter 2026 royalty collections had already exceeded the corresponding period in 2025.
Mrs Nelson also noted that the performance was achieved despite a significant appreciation of the cedi against the US dollar, which typically reduces the local currency value of dollar-denominated mineral revenues.
Chief Technical Officer Kwabena Barning reiterated that MIIF is mandated to maximise the value of income due to the Republic from mineral wealth, while ensuring revenues are managed in a beneficial, transparent, accountable and sustainable manner, and plays a role in reducing Ghana’s exposure to fluctuations in mineral revenue.
CSO representatives acknowledged MIIF’s recent revenue gains but maintained that stronger statutory safeguards were essential to translate operational performance into durable public benefit. They argued that additional reforms were needed to cement transparency, broaden stakeholder representation in governance structures, and secure the Fund’s long-term accountability to Ghanaians.
Ghana remains one of Africa’s leading gold producers, with the metal accounting for more than 90 percent of mineral export receipts. Bauxite, manganese and emerging minerals, including lithium, continue to expand the country’s extractive portfolio.
