Saturday 2 December 2023

Let us tear up the illegitimate lithium mining lease issued to Barari DV Ghana Limited

Dear critical-reader, even an ignoramus and uneducated old fool like me, understands clearly,  that without prior approval by Parliament, the granting of a lithium mining lease to Barari DV Ghana Limited, the Ghanaian subsidiary of Australia domiciled  Atlantic Lithium, cannot be legitimate  - and ought therefore to be swiftly torn up. Full stop.  Yoooooooo...

The question to ponder over is: Have our current leaders still not noticed how our cousins in our West African sister nations of Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali, are dealing with such unconscionable one-sided extractive sector colonial-era type of agreements with the French entities, which were ruthlessly ripping them off?  Haaba.

As wise and aspirational Africans, let us swiftly reject this monstrosity - and tear up what is clearly a robber-baron colonial-era-type of mining agreement. Ditto stop signing them permanently, henceforth.  Haaba.   

If Ghana's current leaders were  creative, selfless, honest and patriotic, by now they would've learnt from  Niger's terrible experience with France, over its uranium deposits being sold and bought  for a pittance in an unconscionable mining agreement  -  and, instead, would have  approached Elon Musk's Tesla,  to partner Ghana to mine all her lithium deposits to produce EV batteries, in a local win-win vertically integrated gigafactory deal.

Musk is honest and would have been happy to sign a model win-win agreement with Ghana, to showcase to the world, what a difference impactful and ethical private-sector  entrepreneurs from the Global North, can make, in helping to create prosperous societies in the Global South.

Ghana's Parliament must reject and halt these colonial-era type of exploitative natural resource mining sector deals. As wise and aspirational Africans, we can do better and must stop signing  such unconscionable and  exploitative mining agreements. Let us tear up the illegitimate lithium mining lease issued to Barari DV Ghana Limited, for that reason. Now. Not tomorrow. Full stop. Yoooooooo...

Let's talk instead to Elon Musk's Tesla, about partnering Ghana, to  set up a refinery, and EV battery  gigafactory,  to enable Ghana to establish a vertically integrated EV battery manufacturing industry locally,  so that our country benefits fully from all our lithium deposits. Towards  that end, let us tear up the illegitimate lithium mining lease issued to Barari DV Ghana Limited. Simple and  commonsensical. Case closed. Full stop. A word to the wise. Yooooooo...

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