Dear Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah,
I have read a press statement in which you ordered Azumah Resources Limited and Engineers & Planners (E&P) to resolve their differences amicably within seven days. If they fail to resolve their differences, you warned, the government would take a decision “in the best interest of the country”.
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Your statement is problematic on many fronts, but I want to settle on the obvious ones.
From my understanding, there is a stalemate in the sale of the mining concession, owned by Azumah Resources Limited, to Engineers & Planners.
For reasons that are subject to a legal tussle, Azumah Resources claims that Engineers and Planners breached the initial sale agreement, so it will no longer sell to the company. Engineers and Planners thinks it is within its rights to proceed with the purchase from Azumah Resources.
If the two parties, private companies, are litigating a transaction at the appropriate quarters, why does the state jump in and order a seven-day resolution?
From what I have understood, the state is like a real estate developer from whom Azumah Resources bought a house. That house was being sold to Engineers & Planners until the problem arose with the terms of the engagement.
Now, your statement warns of the state’s intervention should the parties fail to resolve the matter within seven days.
First, the parties to the contract have avenues to seek redress. You and your government are not a court. You are not in charge of the arbitration. So, on what basis are you giving them seven days? Do you control the timelines for the arbitration and court processes?
Are legal tussles involving private companies bound by the timelines of a ministerial press statement?
The second point is the possible action the government is likely to take, how that would impact the resolution of the conflict between the two parties, and how it would affect investor confidence in our country.
Here are the possible decisions the government might take if your statement is to be taken seriously. The first is that the government would confiscate the mine and revert it to the state. The government could seize it and give it to Azumah Resources. And finally, the government could seize the concession and hand it over to Engineers & Planners.
The last two options are unlikely. Why? Engineers & Planners is a company owned by the brother of the President, so seizing the mine and giving it to the E&P will appear too blatant for the optics.
Also, I don’t foresee the government stepping in to support Azumah Resources, especially after the funfair by Engineers & Planners in the $100 funding arrangement it recently announced.
If the government seizes the mine and subjects it to bidding from potential buyers, any firm, including Engineers & Planners, could win the deal. Azumah Resources will head to court and ask for a judgment debt.
We know that judgment debts are not charged to the account of the ministers and government officials whose recklessness, greed, and wickedness occasion the debt.
So, the state would be saddled with the debt. Azumah Resources will smile to the bank, and the beneficiaries of the new sale, which could be Engineers & Planners or someone else, will be pleased to have the strategic state asset.
And it will, of course, not be in the interest of the state.
So, whose interest are you talking about in your statement, Mr. Minister? The government is not a party to the litigation. Allow the legal tussle to travel its full course. If Engineers & Planners wins, it can go ahead and own the property after paying. If Azumah Resources Ghana Limited wins, it will decide who to sell to and at what terms.
The state should stay off, especially when everyone knows that the balance of power weighs heavily in favour of one of the parties once the state gets in at this point.
Your seven-day ultimatum could be read as a warning to Azumah to accept the current arrangement or risk losing everything.
What you have done is tantamount to tying the hands of Azumah in the boxing ring of litigation.
You may well become the first minister of state in the world to act with the utmost interest of the state without recourse to the interest of the president who appointed you and his family, but the objective person will not appreciate it if the outcome tilts in favour of the president’s brother’s company.
Your commitment to the “interest of the country” may be genuine, but you’re yet to demonstrate that in the fight against illegal mining (galamsey), which poses a mortal threat to the survival of our republic.
Apply your love for the country and interests to the galamsey fight, and let the courts and those handling the arbitration determine which of the two parties is right in this matter. It will save the president from a possible accusation of conflict of interest.
Yours sincerely,
