The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has revealed that the actual mining operations at the Tarkwa Mine are already carried out almost entirely by Ghanaian companies, directly challenging the argument that Ghana lacks the technical or operational capacity to manage the asset independently when its lease expires in April 2027.
Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo, speaking at an IEA press conference in Accra, identified Engineers and Planners, Heath Goldfields Limited and Rockshore International Limited as the Ghanaian firms executing core mining activities at Tarkwa, including the equipment. “The equipment belongs to them and not to Goldfields,” she stated. She added that the University of Mines and Technology has produced internationally recognised mining engineers over six decades, many of whom now work across the global industry.
The disclosure reframes the Tarkwa lease debate considerably. Gold Fields, which has formally applied for a 20-year extension through its Chief Executive Officer Mike Fraser, has built part of its case around the economic value of its continued presence. The mine produces roughly 500,000 ounces of gold annually, representing a market value of over $2.3 billion at current prices and nearly 25 percent of Gold Fields’ entire global production portfolio. The IEA said the scale of that portfolio dependency explains the intensity of the company’s lobbying efforts.
Former Speaker of Parliament Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye framed the lease expiry as a moment of historic consequence, noting that since the contract ends naturally, no cancellation or renegotiation is required. Ghana simply decides whether to extend. He pointed to the Mineral Income Investment Fund as evidence that domestic financing capacity exists, noting that Ghana drew $32 million from the fund in a recent lithium transaction.
Former Barclays Bank Ghana Chairman Dr Charles Mensah anchored the governance argument in Ghana’s fiscal history, noting that the country has sought International Monetary Fund (IMF) support 17 times in 40 years, averaging a fiscal crisis roughly every two and a half years. Each crisis compelled the sale of state assets under conditionality programmes while the country’s most valuable mineral resources remained in foreign hands. He described Tarkwa as a major national asset sitting unharvested in domestic terms.
The IEA grounded its legal case in United Nations (UN) General Assembly Resolutions 1803 and 3281, as well as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which affirm the sovereign right of nations to exploit their natural resources in the exclusive interest of their own people.
The institution called on parliament, traditional authorities, civil society and labour organisations to resist any approval of the extension, urging government to pursue a model built on national ownership, responsible extraction and local value addition rather than the royalty-based concessionary structure it described as a structural driver of Ghana’s recurring economic vulnerability.
