President John Dramani Mahama has agreed with former Chief Justice (CJ) Sophia Akuffo on her call for a review of agreements governing the nation’s extractive industry.  

The former CJ, who is now a Member of the Council of State, made the call in a media interview in Accra, questioning the policy guiding the extraction of Ghana’s mineral resources and how the proceeds were apportioned between the state and foreign investors.  

She described the mineral concession agreement between Ghana and foreign investors as woefully unfavorable for the country. 

“We are still doing it like we are in the days of Guggisberg,” she said. 

Delivering a keynote at the opening of the National Economic Dialogue in Accra, President Mahama said: “Just recently, I think yesterday, the former Chief Justice of this country asked for a review of agreements governing our extractive industry. She described the current agreements as coming from the Guggisberg era, I agree with her.” 

The President said there must be increased indigenous participation in the exploitation of the nation’s natural resources.  

“Ghana must earn more from its natural resource endowment if we are to create wealth and prosperity for our people, my fellow citizens,” the President said. 

He said agriculture was a vital sector of the nation’s economy that must be modernized through mechanization, improved irrigation, and the adoption of technology-driven innovations to enhance productivity and ensure food security. 

He underscored the need for Ghanaians to harness the power of technology to bridge the digital divide, ensuring that every Ghanaian, no matter their location or background, had access to the opportunities that the digital economy provides.  

He said high-speed internet and robust digital infrastructure were no longer luxuries; declaring that they were necessities that fuel economic growth and global competitiveness. 

The President said all this must be underpinned by urgent governance reforms that promote transparency and hold leadership accountable to the people in whom sovereignty resides.  

He said the policies required to bring the national economy back on track and sustain the gains made would require multi-stakeholder buy-in.  

The President said short-term convenience, which had informed economic decision-making in the past, must give way to long-term and medium- and long-term strategic planning, which would help Ghanaians to avoid the cyclical economic booms and busts that had wreaked havoc on our people. 

He said he had the political will to see through such reforms, but they must be the product of Ghanaians’ collective thinking and synthesization of well-considered proposals from stakeholders in the Ghanaian economy, which was why the Government organized the National Economic Dialogue. 

He said Dialogue must serve as a turning point, where Ghanaians moved beyond diagnosing the problems and instead implemented concrete pragmatic solutions to reposition Ghana on a path of sustainable growth.  

The National Economic Dialogue on the theme “Resetting Ghana: Building the Economy We Want Together”, seeks to achieve objectives such as communicating the true state of Ghana’s economy to stakeholders and the people of Ghana, developing a homegrown fiscal consolidation programme to guide the national budget and to highlight key structural reforms and policy priorities essential for resetting the economy. 

A similar National Economic Dialogue was organized 10 years ago during Mahama’s first administration.