Nationalising Ghana’s mines without capital or institutional backing risks repeating state failures of the 1980s, mining consultant Ing. Wisdom Gomashie has said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the WAMPEX 2026 mining conference in Accra, Gomashie argued that Ghana’s current financial position, management culture, and operational capacity fall short of what is needed to successfully acquire and run major mines. The warning comes as public debate over resource nationalism has intensified, driven partly by criticism of contracts between the government and foreign mining firms.
Former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo recently described Ghana’s resource agreements as colonial in character, with foreign companies taking the greater share of benefits. The government has since distanced itself from the idea, with Lands and Natural Resources Minister Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah stating publicly that full nationalisation is not on the agenda.
Gomashie pointed to Ghana’s own record as the most relevant caution. In the 1970s, the state took majority and full ownership of multiple mining companies. Most had collapsed by the early 1980s under poor management and operational failures, requiring Gold Fields’ return in the early 1990s to revive what the government had taken over.
He went further, arguing that countries often cited as models of resource nationalism, including Botswana and Chile, built strong governance systems and institutional cultures over decades before those structures delivered results. Ghana, he said, has not yet developed comparable foundations. He described what is missing as a “mining DNA,” not technical skills alone, but the business discipline and institutional character required to run complex operations profitably over time.
Rather than full nationalisation, Gomashie supports a gradual increase in the state’s ownership. The government currently holds around 10 percent carried interest in most mining operations. He proposed raising that figure to around 30 percent, but was clear that any higher stake must be backed by real capital.
“It is not going to be free,” he said.
Where the state cannot provide that capital, he argued, government should create conditions for private Ghanaian investors to take stakes alongside foreign firms, building Ghanaian ownership without the fiscal exposure of outright state control.
Ghana is Africa’s largest gold producer. The scale of revenue at stake makes the ownership debate consequential, but Gomashie’s case is that good outcomes depend on financial realism, not political timing.
