The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has issued a forceful call on the government of Ghana to decline a formal application by Goldfields Limited for a 20-year extension of its mining lease at the Tarkwa Mine, which expires in April 2027, and instead pursue full Ghanaian ownership and control of what is described as the largest open-pit gold mine in Africa.
The position was declared at a press conference in Accra convened on the theme: Do Not Renew Goldfields’ Tarkwa Mining Lease: Contract the Ghanaian Private Sector, with presentations from former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo, former Speaker of Parliament Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye, and Dr. Charles Mensah, former chairman of Barclays Bank Ghana.
Sophia Akuffo, delivering the lead address, confirmed that Goldfields’ chief executive, Mike Fraser, has formally applied for the extension and is “actively engaging key government officials” in pursuit of approval, while also seeking the support of traditional authorities in Tarkwa and its environs. The IEA described the proposed renewal as “deeply inimical to Ghana’s long-term economic and strategic interests” and called on the government to reject it “decisively.”
The strategic stakes are considerable. The Tarkwa Mine produces approximately 500,000 ounces of gold annually, with an estimated market value of over $2.3 billion at prevailing prices. By Goldfields’ own admission, the Ghanaian operation accounts for nearly 25% of the company’s global production portfolio, a fact Sophia Akuffo said explains the intensity of the company’s lobbying efforts to retain the concession.
The IEA’s position rests on a broader argument about sovereignty and structural economic failure. Mensah noted that Ghana has accessed IMF support 17 times in 40 years, averaging a fiscal crisis approximately “every two and a half years,” each time compelled to sell state assets under conditionality programmes while the country’s most valuable natural assets remained in foreign hands. He argued that Ghana has been “selling everything” while sitting on a “huge low-hanging asset” it cannot access because it has been given away under concessionary arrangements.
Oquaye was direct in framing the lease expiry as a moment of historic consequence, arguing that since the contract will expire naturally, there is no cancellation, no renegotiation, only a decision on whether to extend. “If we don’t give it away, it’s not gone,” he said, urging the government to “walk the talk” after years of official rhetoric about resource ownership. He pointed to the Mineral Income Investment Fund, noting that Ghana paid $32 million from the fund in the recent lithium agreement as evidence that domestic financing capacity exists.
Sofia Akuffo challenged the notion that Ghana lacks the technical capacity to manage the mine independently, pointing out that major operational activities at the Tarkwa mine, including actual mining, equipment, and labour, are already executed by Ghanaian firms such as Engineers and Planners, Heath Goldfields Limited, and Rockshore International Limited. “The equipment belongs to them and not to Goldfields,” she stated, adding that the University of Mines and Technology has for six decades produced internationally recognised mining engineers now working across the global industry.
The IEA anchored its legal argument in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1803, Resolution 3281, and 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 people.” Sophia Akuffo also cited a recent speech by Vice President Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, who declared that mineral extraction “must always serve a higher national purpose” and that “every pit dug beneath the earth” must yield “a commensurate infrastructural legacy.”
The IEA called on parliament, traditional authorities, civil society, and labour groups to resist any approval of the Goldfields extension, and urged the government to pursue a model based on “national ownership, responsible extraction, and local value addition”, replacing the royalty-based concessionary system it described as a structural cause of Ghana’s recurring economic dependency.
