Honorary Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Bright Simons, has expressed concerns about the Minerals Income and Investment Fund (MIIF) being overly enthusiastic about its role in the lithium deal.

He questions the fund's self-congratulatory stance on what it describes as significant capital gains from the proposed investment in the lithium deal.

Mr Simons suggests that the high enthusiasm raises questions about the analysis conducted regarding the price trend of lithium.

Explaining his point on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, Bright Simons said, “For instance they make the argument that they’ve already started to make significant capital gains appreciation on the investment they’ve promised to make and it’s not clear yet whether they’ve already signed the documents and therefore they own this six percent contributing interest in Ewoyaa and the three percent in the holding company.

“But they’re now saying that because at some point in time the price moved from 26 cents to 34 cents they’ve already made money. That’s not how you do this analysis. You’d have to take into account the price over a longer period of time to see whether or not these are trends you can bank on because already that share price has dropped to 27 cents so the 26 to 34 is no longer even valid, already the price has dropped.”

Bright Simons expressed concern about the Minerals Income and Investment Fund (MIIF) showing excessive enthusiasm regarding its role in the lithium deal. He highlighted that the MIIF's self-congratulatory stance on potential significant capital gains from the proposed investment in the lithium deal raises questions about the analysis made regarding the lithium price trend.

Simons emphasized that the enthusiasm may be premature, especially considering the recent significant drops in lithium prices and the corresponding decline in the share price of Atlantic Lithium, the parent company of Barari DV. He cautioned that this trend could impact Ghana's investment in the company in the future if it continues.

“And as the price of the raw material keeps dropping the share price of Atlantic Lithium will also keep dropping at some point so it’s not clear why they do that. Already this is a company that has lost half of its market value since it was established. It moved from about 342 million dollars to about 168 million dollars, so if you’re investing in it you don’t become so self-congratulatory.

“I’m not saying that there’s a problem with the investment, I’m just saying that it’s too early to be prematurely celebrating,” he said.

He added that “It could well be that this is a great coup because of what we are all aware of about the transition so lithium is going to be big. If lithium is big, Atlantic Lithium is going to be big. But my argument is that we have not seen that yet.

“So to already say that you have already seen massive appreciation I think is just propagandist and for a sovereign wealth fund you should be extremely conservative.”