A forensic comparison conducted by IMANI Africa has revealed that Ghana’s proposed lithium mining agreements for the Ewoyaa Lithium Project are nothing but a stab in the back of Ghanaians, who are expected to benefit.
While concerns have already been raised over the 2023 agreement, the new 2025 draft is not any better. According to IMANI, the 2025 agreement not only rolls back key financial wins secured in the 2023 version but also fails to fix critical loopholes that weaken the country’s long-term economic future.
In IMANI’s policy position cited by The High Street Journal, the think tank warns that the revised Ewoyaa Mining Lease, currently before Parliament, represents a “systematic dilution of state benefits”.
The CSOs also add that it is an impending “grave error of economic statecraft,” depriving the nation of millions in crucial revenue from its strategic lithium reserves.
Here is a breakdown of the critical flaws found in both the original 2023 text and the new 2025 draft, focusing on money, value addition, and infrastructure.
- The Catastrophic Concession: The Royalty Debate
According to IMANI, perhaps, the most damaging change between the agreements is the dramatic reduction in the royalty rate, the percentage of sales revenue the government collects.
| Comparison | 2023 Agreement (The Negotiated Rate) | 2025 Draft (The Retreat) | Impact on Ghana |
| Royalty Rate (Clause 20a) | The Company was contractually obligated to pay a fixed ten percent (10%) royalty on total revenue. | The explicit “10%” figure was removed and replaced with a vague clause promising “royalty as prescribed by law or as may be agreed”. | The removal of the 10% is called a “catastrophic concession,” effectively defaulting the rate to the legal minimum of 5%,. This reduction transfers approximately $60 per tonne directly from the Ghanaian treasury to the foreign shareholders. |
| Financial Viability | Even at the lower lithium prices seen in 2023, critics advised that the fixed 10% was not ideal because it lacked a sliding scale to capture “super-profits” during market booms. | The reduction to 5% is being argued for by proponents citing “economic unviability,” yet the project remains profitable even at a crisis price of $800/t with a 10% royalty. | By reverting to 5%, Ghana loses out on windfall revenues during inevitable commodity super-cycles. Analysis shows that at current lithium prices, the 5% reduction costs the state about $21 million annually. |
IMANI says the new 2025 deal takes the 10% guaranteed money the country negotiated and swaps it for a potential 5% baseline, which experts argue is completely unjustified by the project’s strong profit margins.
2. The Refinery Illusion: Downstream Obligations Softened
The forensic analysis further revealed that both agreements addressed the need to process lithium locally (value addition), but both also contained a critical flaw that the 2025 draft only made worse.
| Comparison | 2023 Agreement | 2025 Draft | Impact on Ghana |
| Refinery Commitment (Schedule 2) | The agreement mandated the Company “shall establish a chemical plant for refining the concentrate in Ghana,” but this was only conditioned on the outcome of a “scoping study.”. | The wording remains similar, but the broader softening of terms suggests the “scoping study” will now be used as an easy “escape hatch” to justify not building the plant. | The commitment to value addition—which turns raw concentrate (worth ~15,000/t)—is rendered illusory,. Critics had advised that the language should have been tightened in the new deal to demand a “definitive feasibility study” with strategic options to make refining happen. |
3. The Saltpond Jetty: A Political Distraction?
A clause completely absent from the 2023 agreement was inserted into the 2025 draft, raising immediate suspicion among technical analysts.
| Comparison | 2023 Agreement | 2025 Draft | Impact on Ghana |
| Infrastructure (Saltpond Jetty) | This clause was absent. | The 2025 lease introduces a requirement for the Company to conduct a feasibility study for constructing a jetty or mini-port system at Saltpond. | Experts believe this proposal is technically impractical due to the rough coastal environment and high capital costs, likely exceeding the savings from avoiding the existing Port of Takoradi. Its inclusion appears to be a “political sweetener” designed to garner local support by promising development, rather than a serious logistical solution. |
The Bottomline
For the think tank, while the 2023 agreement, with its 10% royalty, was heralded as a step forward, it was still fiscally weak and had vague commitments on local processing.
The 2025 revised lease has taken those existing weaknesses and layered on massive new financial concessions, effectively setting a dangerous precedent for future negotiations of strategic resources.
The current draft is viewed as a retreat to the same model that characterized Ghana’s less-than-successful history with gold mining. These are some of the reasons why IMANI is pushing for a total overhaul of the country’s mineral resource governance. Already, a copy of the think tank’s policy position document has been submitted to the president and the committee on lands and natural resources in parliament.
As the 2025 agreement has finally been withdrawn for further consultations, it is expected that the new deal will be improved and prioritize the interests of Ghanaians.
