The Paramount Chief of the Mankessim Traditional Area, Osagyefo Amanfo Edu IV, has appealed to Parliament to expedite approval of the mining lease for the Ewoyaa Lithium Project, cautioning that the continued delay is deepening hardship among affected communities.
Speaking on The Pulse, following a JoyNews documentary filmed in the affected area, “Hope on Pause: The Lithium Promises“, which highlights how stalled commitments have left local aspirations in limbo, the chief stressed that parliamentary debates over the proposed 5% royalty should not stall the entire project.
He argued that legislators could continue deliberations on the royalty arrangement while allowing the mining lease to be approved immediately.
According to him, mining operations require considerable time to prepare before extraction begins. Approving the lease, he noted, would enable the company to initiate preliminary work, including the resettlement of residents, compensation processes, and the delivery of infrastructure projects that were promised at the outset.
“It takes not less than a year to complete and commission a mine. They are going to do the civil works, the mechanical work, and the electrical work. After that, they will do the resettlement simultaneously before all these things. These processes are not going to be within the next six or seven months, so my opinion is that, parliament should approve the lease so that these processes will commence,” he said.
“If our interest now is the royalty, by January 2027, when production starts, then we get our royalties,” he added.
Osagyefo Amanfo Edu IV insisted that early approval is the only viable route to ensuring that families displaced by the project can be relocated, supported, and given the opportunity to pursue the development they were promised.
He warned that any further delay would worsen the already precarious living conditions in the affected communities, conditions captured vividly by JoyNews cameras.
The documentary below;
Read also: Ewoyaa Lithium project delays leaving our people starving — Mankessim Paramount Chief laments
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