The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (CCJ) has dismissed a suit against the Government of Ghana (GoG) over the controversial Agyapa deal, a gold royalties monetisation transaction that has been widely criticised by civil society groups and anti-corruption campaigners.

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The suit was filed by three anti-corruption groups — Transparency International, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition (GACC) — in December 2020, seeking an order to halt the implementation of the Agyapa deal.

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They argued that the deal was dominated by “politically exposed persons” and violated the rights of Ghanaians to have permanent sovereignty over the country’s natural resources as provided under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.However, the court, sitting in Abuja, Nigeria, last Tuesday, ruled in favour of the government and threw out the case of the three civil society organisations.

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The court said the detailed reasoning for its decision would be made available later.The Agyapa deal, which was approved by Parliament in August 2020, involves the creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Agyapa Royalties Limited to receive a percentage of Ghana’s gold royalties from mining companies and use it to raise funds on the London Stock Exchange.

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The government says the deal is intended to maximise the country’s mineral wealth and invest it for the benefit of Ghanaians. However, critics say the deal is opaque, unfair and prone to corruption.The deal was also opposed by the former Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, who resigned from his post in November 2020 after releasing a scathing report on the deal.

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He accused the government of interfering with his work and warned of “bid rigging, corruption activity including the potential for illicit financial flows and money laundering”.The Leader of the Alliance of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the extractive sector, Dr Steve Manteaw, has described as misleading the reports concerning the ECOWAS court’s ruling on the Agyapa deal.

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He said that the ruling was mainly centred on the human rights and sovereign rights of Ghanaians over their natural resources and not the merit of the Agyapa deal.“Misleading in the sense that the case before the ECOWAS court was not for the court to determine the merit of Agyapa.

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It bordered heavily on human rights and sovereign rights of citizens as to what is done with their natural resources and this is what the court pronounced on and not the merit of Agyapa or not,” he was quoted by citinewsroom.com.He also said that there was an extensive quotation on the African Charter on Human Rights which clearly indicated that the matter before the court had more to do with human rights than corruption.

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Transparency International and its Ghanaian chapter have expressed disappointment at the ECOWAS court’s ruling, saying that it leaves people’s rights at risk.They said that they remain convinced that the proposed sale would serve corrupt interests and not the people of Ghana, and called on the government to terminate the already stalled Agyapa deal once and for all.

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They also said that they will analyse the court’s reasoning once it is available in writing and decide on their next steps.

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