Mpraeso MP Davis Ansah Opoku has opposed the renewal of Gold Fields’ Tarkwa Mine lease, calling on Ghana to reclaim expired concessions and place strategic mineral assets under local ownership.
Opoku threw his weight behind the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) position on indigenous control of the mining sector, arguing that Ghana now has the trained professionals, capital, and operational capacity to manage its own gold mines without leaning on foreign multinationals.
“If a lease has expired, why should we continue renewing it?” he said.
The MP recalled that foreign participation was once unavoidable because Ghana lacked the technical depth to run large scale operations. That gap, he argued, has closed. The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) now produce mining graduates every year, while a growing class of Ghanaian investors stands ready to step into the sector.
He pointed to Gold Fields’ reported profit of more than $500 million from Ghana last year as evidence that the country is subsidising shareholder returns abroad while bearing the long term cost of resource depletion. The ore and the profits, he argued, leave the shores while communities absorb the environmental aftermath.
Much of the operational work at Tarkwa, Opoku noted, is already carried out by Ghanaian contractors. He named Rocksure and Engineers and Planners as indigenous firms with the muscle to take on larger roles if government backs them with policy and financing.
The MP stopped short of calling for blanket nationalisation. The transition, he said, must be paced against the availability of local skills, capital, and managerial capacity, with each mine assessed on its own merits before passing into Ghanaian hands.
He held up Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote as a working template, arguing that Nigeria’s deliberate state and consumer backing of a homegrown champion produced a continental player. Ghana, he said, must show the same conviction toward Rocksure, Engineers and Planners, and similar firms.
Retaining mining profits domestically, the MP added, would unlock new roads, hospitals, and schools that hundreds of millions of dollars in annual outflows currently fund elsewhere. He also drew a sharper line, referencing the treatment of Ghanaians and Nigerians in parts of South Africa to question why African resources continue to underwrite economies that do not reciprocate.
The Mpraeso lawmaker said he stands fully behind the IEA’s recommendation that Ghana take deliberate steps toward greater ownership of its strategic national resources.
