General News of Thursday, 7 October 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2021-10-07Mahama sold about 75% of Ghana’s bauxite reserves to his brother – Bawumia’s aide
Gideon Boako is an aide to Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia
• President Mahama handed a major part of Ghana's bauxite reserves to his brother
• The NPP government abrogated the deal that gave the Nyinahin reserve to Ibrahim Mahama's Exton Cubic
• The reserve has been collateralized to fund the Sinohydro project between Ghana and a Chinese outfit
Gideon Boako, an aide to Vice President
Read full articlehref='/GhanaHomePage/people/person.php?ID=1188'>Mahamudu Bawumia, has said former President John Dramani Mahama sold about three-quarters of Ghana’s bauxite reserves to a company associated with his brother Ibrahim Mahama.
According to him, with less than a month to his exit from office having lost the 2016 election, the Mahama administration sold the Nyinahin reserve that has about 75% of Ghana’s bauxite reserves to Ibrahim Mahama’s Exton Cubic.
He explained on Net2 TV’s The Seat Show which aired on October 5, 2021, that but for the intervention of the New Patriotic Party, NPP, government that cancelled the deal, Ghana would have been the worse for it.
Addressing what he said was opposition propaganda about where Ghana’s bauxite reserves were most dominant, he submitted: “Atewa has bauxite, Nyinahin has and Awaso also has but about 70 – 75% of Ghana’s bauxite is in Nyinahin, not Atewa.
“It is the Nyinahin reserve that two weeks to his exit, Mahama awarded to his brother’s company, Exton Cubic. But Dr. Bawumia took it upon himself and worked to have government to cancel it and it was vested back into the state for the larger benefit of Ghanaians,” he added.
He said the NPP government’s resolve was to ensure that such a valuable asset could not be given to one family. He enumerated projects that bauxite in the Nyinahin reserve which has been collateralized under the SinoHydro project will benefit from.
Among others, the Sunyani, Cape Coast, Kumasi and Accra inner-city roads, the Adenta – Dodowa road and the PCT, Tamale interchanges. “If it had been left to Exton Cubic, we will not be able to fix the road,” he stressed.
The government created the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation per an act of Parliament to ensure the mining and development of Ghana’s bauxite and aluminium reserves.
Exton Cubic was awarded the Nyinahin concession in 2016 but the deal was cancelled by the Supreme Court after a High Court ordered the government to respect it.
