A Ghanaian investment company, which has offered to invest $13 million in the Ada Songhor Lagoon project, says its effort are being frustrated by lack of transparency in government policy on the industry.

Lufenya Sea & Solar Resources Limited (LSSR) is also worried that its application to the Minerals Commission in April last year, to manage and produce salt worth over $16 million a year, with job to over a 1000 inhabitants of Ada, has been jettisoned by government in favour of a quasi-state management and contrary to the government?s declared intent during the last elections.

While the company is worried over the rejection of its interest, it has also expressed concerns over lack of transparency in the way in which the project is being handled by the Ministry of Mines, which it says could worsen the already thawed relations between the people of Ada and the State, following their previous experiences with the former NDC government.

In a statement released yesterday, LSSR expressed the hope that fairness, equity and good socio economic sense would prevail in the handling of issues relating to the Lagoon to engender the realisation of the golden age of business and the growth of investment in Ghana.

Below is the full text of its statement released in Accra.

We write on behalf of our company and in the interest of other Ghanaian investors who are in a position similar to ours, with the hope that fairness, equity and good socio-economic sense will be made to prevail to ensure the growth of local business.

Our Company: Lufenya Sea & Solar Resources Ltd(L.S.S.R). We reproduce below some highlights of our company (L.S.S.R) as submitted in our application to Minerals Commission on 3/4/02 after official search on 11th April 2001.

Objective: Large-Scale production and Marketing of Solar salt and development of fish farming. Size of Lagoon: 20% of unallocated Ada Songor Lagoon. Shareholding: 100% Ghanaian.

Letter of Consent/Close Co-operation from Allodial Owners.

The Project: The project will be using very modern methods estimated to yield in excess of present total Ghana production and an average of 300,000m/tons of coarse salt with a minimum of 35% to be refined. Over 95% of all production will be exported. Sales turnover is computed to be in excess of $16million per annum. Construction period may take 18-24 months. Costing approx. $13.5m (including a refinery and a modern sea-inlet). Initial winning of salt may start in the 3rd year. Up to 1000 inhabitants may be employed and the community given special facilities to win salt per modern methods with our company bearing the bulk of the cost involved.

Possession of Letter of Intent from External Financiers Subject to Minerals Commission?s License.

The fears of our company crystallized with the Minister of Mines? statement on Peace FM on the 1st of August, that Cabinet has already approved the formation of the Ada Songor Salt Development Authority, to replace the former and rejected ?Oversight Committee?.

In effect the land vested in the State by P.N.D.C. Law 287 whether repealed or not, will again be managed by another state organization!

The above statement brings sharply into focus certain issues that need to be examined closely.

Our company believes that the Minister of Mines has obviously overlooked certain significant lapses to get his recommendations to the Cabinet. For an understanding of this claim some background information is necessary.

In 1992, the PNDC, under PNDCL 287 vested the Ada Songor Basin in the State, resulting in the formation of Ada Songor Salt Ltd, a subsidiary of GNPC, to exploit the salt potential of the area under a Cuba/Ghanaian Research Team Recommendation. For eight years this draconian law could never be implemented successfully and never really took off, because the owners and those whose economic lives depended on the salt, felt they had not been consulted in the process which had deprived them of their surface rights and strongly resisted.

A rejected ?Oversight Committee,? now renamed Ada Songor Salt Development Authority a.k.a. Ada Songor Management Commitee, replicates the former government?s intentions, except that the Mines Minister said on radio (Peace FM around January 2002) that it would not exist beyond two years, and then handed over to private investors. Why this needless experiment? Why not give the land to private investors now?

Of course, we are witnesses to the various press conferences by the owners of the Lagoon and its surroundings, rejecting their marginalisation and holding the Ministry of Mines to previous promises of re-instating their surface rights.

a. The Risk of Over-Reliance on Government Promises, Prior to Their Becoming Law.

Our company, ?Lufenya Sea and Solar Resources Ltd,? has regrettably taken official government pronouncements, written confirmations and exhortations in good faith and at face value. We blindly believed that government will repeal P.N.D.C. (Vesting) Law 287, returning surface rights of Ada Songor Basin to the Landowners instead of creating another State institution ? Ada Songor Salt Development Authority. The result of this is that we have plunged headlong into costly but unproductive pre-operational expenditure, time, effort and other resources by our dealing directly with the landowners.

We recognize government?s prerogative to change its mind on issues. However, in this case, the resulting damage to its own credibility and avowed goals of Golden-Age of Business, Promotion of Private Enterprise and Development of Property-owning initiatives appear so glaring that the noble intentions and powerful declarations become suspect and potential local investors whose plans have been influenced by an electioneering campaign manifesto, as well as Cabinet Minister?s reconfirmations of above, are suddenly left in limbo.

b. Reversal of Divestiture Policy?

In his State-of-the-nation address to Parliament, His Excellency, President John Agyekum Kuffour commended the performance of private entrepreneurs over state-owned enterprises. Nobody would dispute President Kuffuor?s stand and that?s why we all accept his arguments in support of the continuation of the processes of divestiture of state enterprises, including even electricity and water.

Why then the creation of Ada Songor Salt Development Authority?

c. State Enterprise Efficiency and Unlimited Resources?

If government is doing all it could to get the private sector involved in areas that are believed to traditionally lie properly within the public domain(including water), what managerial efficiency has the State suddenly acquired to operate lagoon water and salt mining better than the private investor? A Management Committee of 17 with 11 State appointees is cleverly being touted as ?Adas running their own affairs!? Does the state have unlimited resources to venture into activities in which the private sector is readily prepared to invest? Is the State not going to guarantee the resources involved. Shouldn?t any surplus resource first go to sectors such as hospitals, roads, schools and utility services?

d. Owners Participation and Sustainable Peace In Ada-Songor Lagoon Area

It should also be obvious to any Ghanaian that any attempt to over-ride the interest of land owners, particularly their constitutional rights to the surface of the land (See Honorable Minister of Lands, Prof. Kasim Kasanga?s publication in Daily Graphic of 21st May 2002) can never lead to sustainable peace in the long term. Not even the strong-arm tactics of the past government could coerce the community to abandon their struggle to redeem their inalienable right to their lands.

Our company is aware of numerous fruitless attempts that the owners (through Ada-Songor Basin owners committee) have made to have their voice heard. How long can any successive government sustain this natural injustice without review or reversal, with the existence of P.N.D.C. Law 287 or Ada Songor Salt Development Authority?

True Owners Pitched Against Ada Traditional Council (Chiefs).

The ownership of the Songor Lagoon has never been in doubt. The land has always belonged to the Terkpebiawe clan with some adjoining lands being claimed by the Adibiawe and Lomobiawe clans. This is supported by records available to the Ministry of Lands. The Ada Traditional Council itself has never hidden this fact from anyone who has bothered to find out the facts.

See: (i) Hon. Minister of Lands & Mines in letter ref. D.B.- 4/170.01 dated 7th July 2001, written to Ada Traditional Council.

(ii) Ada Traditional Council?s reply per ATC/SLA/007/3/Vol 2/4 of 28th March 2002 to Minister of Lands & mines copied to new Minister of Mines and the Chief of Staff etc.

(iii) Press Statement issued by Ada Traditional Council and reproduced in Graphic of 3/4/02.

The central theme in the above says ?by immemorial custom and tradition of the people of Ada, as recognized in various judicial decisions of the highest courts of the Gold Coast and Ghana, the true owners of the Ada Songor Lagoon have been and still are the people of Tekpebiawe Clan of Ada.?

Yet in all his dealings in connection with the land, the Minister of Mines has limited his contacts and discussions to the representatives of the Ada Traditional Council, ignoring the clans who are the real owners. Why this in an era of Positve Change?

The Minister of Mines has up-to-date not presented the real owners and stakeholders with any convincing case or won their consent. They, on the other hand, have through various channels including correspondence, representations and press conferences attempted to express their unease and displeasures at being totally marginalized. None of these attempts have proved fruitful. The people are crying for a modicum of respect and decorum on the part of government in the way it handles sensitive matters that directly affect their lives. (Refer to their last letter to Mines Minister dated 16th August 2002 and copied to 15 others including Council of State, Majority and Minority leaders of parliament).

Naturally, we were shocked when we heard on Peace FM on August 1 2002 that the Ada Traditional Council had consented to support moves by the government to set up the Ada Songor Lagoon Development Authority following which Cabinet had approved the recommendations of the Minister of Mines to that effect.

The Traditional Council itself admits that the land belongs to the clans not the Council and the Minister is aware of the Council?s position in this respect. One would, therefore, have expected the Minister of Mines to raise a question mark about the Council?s resolution, which the Minister proudly quotes to support his recommendations. One wonders if the Minister indicated these two contradicting positions of the Traditional Council to Cabinet as bases for informed decision.

What our company wants to drive home is that a thorough study of the customs and practices of the people of Ada will inform the observer that, unlike other ethnic groups, chiefs in the Ada per se do not own lands. Not even the Paramount Chief who is also President of Ada Traditional Council, as he himself again confirmed in a live program on Choice FM a few weeks ago.

The question then is: did the Minister make Cabinet aware of the full facts before the proposal was approved? Can the Minister of Mines ensure permanent peace over the Ada Songor lands when the owners have already began fighting to assert their right to be consulted? Will the attempts to create a new set of ?representatives? in the Ada Traditional Council regardless of the incipient discontent, not lead to chaos, mayhem and indiscipline?

The owners and stakeholders have through press publications, expressed their willingness to deal fairly with all potential investors; and a number of us(companies) have already entered into agreement with the real owners. Why should all other investors interested in Ada Songor land not pass through the same process by seeking the consent of the owners before they apply to the Minerals Commission for Mining license as is expected of all mining companies? This surely, should bring about permanent peace and render P.N.D.C Law 287 redundant. (If repealing it is a problem).

f. Is The Honourable Minister of Mines Being Fair to Parliamentarians?

On 31st May 2002, the Member of Parliament for Ada among other things wanted the Honourable Minister of Mines to confirm or deny in Parliament if Cabinet had already approved the formation of Ada Songor Salt Development Authority. The Minister according to Honourable M.P. for Ada responded in the negative, claiming it could not have been approved without prior consultation with those concerned. Yet a copy of a document sent to the Ada Traditional Council by the Minister of Mines on 8th May 2002 confirming a verbal discussion between the Minister and the Traditional Council, clearly stated that ?Cabinet had approved? the recommendations. Fellow Ghanaian investors, is this not intriguing?

All along we have made our analysis based on the assumption that there are no powerful multinational or local companies that the Ministry of Mines might be a front for or might be sponsoring and protecting from open competition. Or is it possible that there are undercover operations to deny and deprive some ordinary Ghanaian entrepreneurs who have obtained the prior consent of the real owners of the land, being handicapped or eliminated?

Do ordinary Ghanaian businessmen, entrepreneurs or investors who do not individually command the huge capital outlays and financial resources available to mighty multinationals, but who are prepared to fight competitively with their proverbial well-oiled catapult need to be sabotaged any further? The Minister of Mines gave a hint, which has led us to entertain fears of a possible unfair competition. When the Minister of Mines recently toured the Keta Basin, he announced that Ashanti Goldfields Ltd had expressed interest to mine salt from all the stretch of coastal land from Aflao to Ada. This was followed up with a news item on GTV that Ashanti Goldfields Ltd was the first to express an interest in the area.

The latter assertion cannot be supported by the records available to us. Our company had long applied for a virgin portion of Ada lagoon and were only waiting for a Mineral license, believing blindly that Vesting Law 287 would be repealed as promised and land given to owners instead of creating another take-over institution and eventually passing over to foreign giants later.

If our fears are true, in an era of open competition and the breakdown of monopolies, do we need to create a super giant to control most of our gold as well as our salt? Ghana?s economic problems can best be resolved by determined ordinary Ghanaian investors and entrepreneurs. State agencies only need to be fair and consistent to facilitate the process. We do not want to believe (as the Minister had already hinted) that the transitional Ada Songor Salt Development Authority might be a front for an eventual mighty Conglomerate.

Our company still sincerely believes that the government with the support of the good people of Ghana will ensure a level playing field when the full facts of the Ada Songor lands are known.

We are not against the interest of any mega giant or multinational or their subsidiaries, but feel that our government officials must support capable, competent and wholly owned Ghanaian enterprises. They must at least be given the chance to demonstrate what the Ghanaian entrepreneur could do when given a fair and equal opportunity. The World Bank boss indeed said we must learn to grow the domestic capital.

We appreciate the fact that the government has an unlimited power to grant any land to an individual investor or company; however, in the name of fair play, equity and justice, all companies capable of developing a salt industry (as is happening in Winneba) must be allowed to throw an open challenge to the Ada Songor Development Authority or any multi-national company to demonstrate, in specific terms, their developmental plans for the community from whom they seek to operate their industry.

Limited though our resource base may appear, as compared to what any multinational can command, it is sufficient in relation to size of land acquired. (Our 300,000metric tons planned production is in excess of Ghana?s total output for 2002). We must therefore be encouraged to compete not only in the exploitation of the mineral but also in the socio-economic development of the Community within which we intend to operate.

Our Company has provided in all our written agreements and discussions with the owners of the land, specific projects, cash deposits and profit- sharing arrangements with the people, and these will be carried out to the letter and made enforceable by both parties if given a fair chance.

To buttress our determination and commitment to compete with any competitor, we quote what we wrote in our application to the Minerals Commission on 3rd April 2002. ?The project is committed to be Socially friendly with responsibility to bring a range of infrastructural development to Lufenya area and act as a model to other competing interests and also place lesser demands on government for social benefits.?

We conclude by quoting the ?Chronicle? of Saturday 19th October 2002, ?Ghana has forgotten that it has failed to treat the local investors well?????..

We should begin our charity at home. Efforts should be made to support local investors seriously. Let the Golden Age of Business begin with Ghanaian entrepreneurs!?

Why can?t a Ghanaian investor co-exist with the mighty foreign interest in the Ada Songor Basin, provided the latter will also show the real owners the traditional customary respect and consent.