Is Ghana Not Going Overboard?

Is Ghana Not Going Overboard?

By Kelechi Deca

This is what a friend from South Africa asked me today after an online meeting both of us participated in. I still have many friends from SA, so don't mind those who are calling others to unfollow me.

The question arose from the decision by the rejection by the Ghanaian government of a mining lease renewal for the South African mining giant Gold Fields at the Damang mine, following the lease's expiration. 

Instead of granting an extension, the government took control of the asset and awarded it to a Ghanaian operator, Engineers & Planners (E&P).

While the Ghanian authorities say this decision was informed by a broader push by Ghana to assert tighter control over its mineral wealth and keep a larger share of revenues in local hands.

Others are reading extra meaning into it against the backdrop of the scandalous xenophobic, sorry Afrophobic attacks in South Africa.

It could be recalled that after Gold Fields' lease for the Damang mine expired, the Ghanaian authorities declined to renew it, with the government formally taking over the asset.

Moreso, the Ghanaian government has signaled that it will not automatically renew Gold Fields' lease for the much larger Tarkwa mine when it expires in 2027.

The Lands and Natural Resources Ministry has made it clear that future lease renewals depend on higher commitments to local ownership, technology transfer, and direct community development.

But many in South Africa are reading the motive as a subtle flexing of economic muscle as a diplomatic tool in addressing what they term as dehumanising their citizens in South Africa.

This is even as the Ghanaian president said that Ghana has no diplomatic problems with South Africa inspite of the maltreatment of her people. His remarks arose against the backdrop of insinuations that there's an ongoing back-chanel diplomacy between both countries.

And this doesn't take cognisance of the comments attributed to the South African Foreign Minister who condemned what he called Ghana's "spectaculisation" of the repatriation process which according to him rubs off wrongly on South Africa, a comment that has been roundly poo-pooed by many Africans across the continent

Responding to my friend, I reminded him of the Igbo proverb that " the snake said that if it doesn't do what snakes are supposed to do, children would play with it and some even calling it a rope which makes it lose confidence and feel like a defanged toy."

In geopolitics, you are entitled to decide your actions but you cannot choose for the other side to react in ways that are only convenient for you.

Sensing this possibility, the South African government is sending out envoys across 54 African countries on a fence mending preventive and shuttle diplomacy to calm frayed nerves, but critics are pointing out the fact that many Africans still in South Africa are being harangued, hunted and maimed as others have their businesses looted.

This comes as no efforts by the government has been made towards de-escalating the situation as 30th June approaches. This according to analysts defeats the objectives of the diplomatic shuttle.

It all compounds because everything is connected to everything.

My own is to write...