The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has raised red flags over the recently approved lease agreement for salt mining in the Ada Songor lagoon. Over 150 square miles of the concession have been given to Electrochem Ghana Limited to dig, mine and produce salt for the next fifteen years. The area is currently producing only 330,000 metric tonnes of salt out of a national capacity of 2.3 Million metric tonnes.
Under the agreement, Electrochem will pay annual mineral rights fee of 100,000 USD in additional to the payment of royalties and ground rent. Government expects to rake in over 75 Million USD as corporate tax and 870 Million USD as income tax from the concessionaire. It also anticipates that the agreement will push its industrialization drive to produce and supply salt at competitive price.
But flagbearer of the CPP Ivor Kobina Greenstreet said the Electrochem deal is not in the interest of the indigenes and the state.
“We have different ideas about how the resources of the state need to be used for the people. Nothing good has ever happened at Obuasi, Prestea ,Awaso or Tarkwa that as a people we can be proud of in terms of revenues that we have gained. For too long our parliaments have taken decisions and passed laws which don’t benefit the people. and this is another example. What our leaders have been doing for us has been nothing short of robbery and cheating the people of Ghana and successive generations yet to come ” he told journalists at the project site.
Mr. Greenstreet said although the CPP is not against private sector participation in the management of resources, it is demanding a review of the Electrochem deal to ensure that the country is not shortchanged.
“The state must get a greater share of this enterprise to ensure that we get full benefits for national development. Many years ago, a pregnant woman died here, trying to defend the women who earn their living out of these resources. You have seen the extent of poverty and the situation the people find themselves in. We demand that such an agreement will be reversed as well as the many other agreements which we do not benefit the people of this nation” he noted.
The CPP flagbearer asked the electorates to give the ruling NPP and the opposition NDC what he called an electric shock by voting massively for the CPP on December 7 to improve the country’s fortunes though effective leadership.