I have been inundated with messages from all quarters following my earlier article on the issue of the Damang mine controversy. After my appearance on Newsfile today, the messages spiked.I sense a lot of confusion due to incessant misinformation and spin so I am writing this follow-up article to address some of the key misconceptions.E&P would win any tender for DamangA. One argument I keep hearing is that Engineers & Planners (E&P) was literally “operating” the mine anyway so stepping into Gold Fields’ shoes should be totally seamless.B. Furthermore, we are told that literally no other company comes anywhere close to E&P, hence any tender, regardless of how it is designed to comply with all best practices, would inevitably lead to E&P winning.C. This is a simplistic argument. E&P was indeed a mining services contractor for Gold Fields at Damang. But its responsibilities were primarily in the blast, load, and haul segment of a much larger and complex operation.D. To help the reader appreciate this, I have produced a chart below which shows the expense profile of Damang in Gold Fields’ books in 2021, when the full spectrum of operations was underway.E. You can see that the segment within which E&P operated accounted for 39% of total spending. Within that segment, E&P was not responsible for critical activities like mine planning and scheduling, grade reconciliation, etc. The most favourable estimate of the proportion of work done by E&P is 30% to 35%. A more reasonable estimate would be 25%F. Saying that because E&P was a contractor for years at the site, it can slot in seamlessly into the total mine management position is like saying that because Aviance has been a long-term ground services handler for United Airlines, it can very easily start operating flights. Or that because ST Engineering is a maintenance, repair, and overhaul contractor for United Airlines that it can start running an airline overnight. Or that MTN’s tower operators can take over and deliver on its telecom license without sweat.G. A gold mine is not a construction project with a single skill set at its core. It is a layered industrial enterprise, more akin to a vertically integrated manufacturer than to a civil works contract. The ore in the ground is merely the raw material. Extracting economic value from it requires a chain of specialised disciplines – exploration and resource modelling, mine planning and scheduling, drilling and blasting, load and haul, grade control, metallurgical processing, tailings engineering, environmental management, power procurement, finance, and finally, critically, the commercial machine to sell the gold at the right price to the right counterparty at the right moment.H. The processing challenge at Damang is worth dwelling on. Gold Fields’ own data shows that the ore at Damang contains pyrrhotite – a sulphide mineral notorious for consuming oxygen during the leaching process. A lot of the ore also contains preg-robbing carbonaceous matter, which, at relatively low concentrations, nonetheless intercepts dissolved gold before it can be recovered. Addressing this required Gold Fields to supplement plant oxygen supply with liquid hydrogen peroxide and to reconfigure the first leaching tank as a carbon-in-leach unit rather than a standard carbon-in-pulp vessel. Being a blasting and haulage contractor doesn’t grant E&P the specialist knowledge of how Damang’s specific ore types behave under industrial conditions.I. There is also the web of specialist relationships, and the institutional memory of managing them. For example, Gold Fields’ power contract with Genser Energy at (referenced as $0.14 per kilowatt-hour in the Damang Technical Report Summary) is premised on a relationship – built over years of performance and creditworthiness – does not automatically transfer with the lease.J. Gold hedging and price optimisation represent another layer of specialised advantage that a contractor cannot automatically inherit. In 2024, Gold Fields received $2,385 per ounce for Damang gold against a spot price environment that many smaller operators struggle to fully capture due to timing mismatches, logistics costs, and limited treasury sophistication. Hedging programmes, forward sales, and streaming arrangements require counterparties who are comfortable with the operator’s credit profile and operational history. An operator entering the sector for the first time, regardless of its Ghanaian credentials, cannot take that market trust for granted.2. Gold Fields has brought in foreign companies to manage critical functionsIn fact, E&P’s own conduct in recent months shows that it does not believe this. It was proud to announce a short while ago that it has engaged FLSmidth, the Danish engineering firm, as its strategic technology partner for the processing plant, covering gyratory and cone crushers, SAG and ball mills, absorption, desorption, refining and detoxification systems. A separate engagement brought in SGS Bateman as owner’s engineer.3. E&P has everything to proveOf course, all mining companies hire specialised subcontractors to handle various operations, including even dining for on-site staff. That point however means two things:A. Taking over Damang was not an opportunity limited to a mining services contractor. In fact, a company strong in chemical processing, metallurgy, geology, etc. would be just as competent. They would then outsource the blast, load, and haul segment to others. This is more the reason why it was necessary to open up the process to as many potential investors as possible.B. What matters most in mining success is effective integration capacity and top technical and managerial capabilities backed by serious financial strength. E&P now has the chance to demonstrate if it has this capacity, but no one can assume that it does since it has no experience in total mine management.4. Gold Fields itself didn’t want to continue with DamangThe record says otherwise. Gold Fields tried hard to hold on to Damang. It is evident that powerful actors were determined to seize the mine from Gold Fields. There was a litany of confusions in the decision-making chain that led to the refusal of the renewal application.5. The process of taking the mine away from Gold Fields revealed disorganisationAs indicated in the full timeline above, and summarised below, the refusal decision was replete with arbitrariness, disorganised thinking, and total lack of due process. Our concern is that bending rules in such a disorganised fashion undermines the overall regulatory culture. When that happens, local businesses are bound to suffer too.6. What exactly are your concerns with the Minister’s actions?A. The government’s insistence on 100 per cent Ghanaian ownership as a tender condition may seem like a no-brainer. The vast majority of Ghanaians have become very worried about foreign ownership of Ghana’s natural resources. Insisting on 100% Ghanaian citizen ownership of Damang is, on the surface, patriotic.B. However, the right way to approach such objectives is through across-the-board policies and laws. Bending the rules and twisting principles only if specific, super-connected, businesses are involved is less about patriotism and more about elite insider-dealing.C. The laws governing mining and investment in Ghana are very clear about when opportunities, like a vacant mining lease, can be restricted to only 100% Ghanaian-owned entities. Unfortunately, none of the laws grant the Minister the power to set such a pre-condition. The risk with allowing the Minister to have his way is that we would be endorsing arbitrary and capricious behaviour. Why do we believe that such conduct shall be confined to dealings with foreign entities?7. If the 100% Ghanaian ownership stipulation is good in principle, then why should we worry?D. Had the tender been structured differently, allowing, for instance, a credible joint-venture framework that allowed Ghanaian businesses and entrepreneurs to bring in overseas equity partners with strong access to capital, technology, and operational capabilities, a much larger pool of qualified bidders would definitely have emerged.E. Especially if enough time had been provided for such prospective bidders to secure advisors (finance, technical, operational, legal, etc.), undertake due diligence, and put together their bids. Certainly, to leave only SEVEN DAYS for such a complex transaction pegged at a minimum of $500 million is mind-boggling.F. Whilst “indigenous control of our natural resources” is certainly laudable, one can question whether there is a genuine policy and ideological foundation. On 26th March 2026, barely a fortnight before the Damang transition deadline, Parliament passed the Ghana Investment Promotion Authority Bill, replacing the GIPC Act of 2013. A major feature of the new law is the lowering of minimum investment thresholds for foreign investors, addressing long-standing concerns that Ghana’s capital requirements had made it an outlier and discouraged potential investors relative to other markets in the region. Foreign Direct Investment – FDI – into Ghana fell to $1.66 billion in 2024, down from $3.23 billion in 2013, the year the GIPC Act was introduced, a decline that the government has explicitly identified as one of the structural problems the new legislation is designed to reverse. There is serious policy incoherence if the country is busily attracting foreign investors into mining and petroleum and then selectively applying 100% local ownership only when powerful businesspeople are involved.8. Indigenisation Done Well, and Done OtherwiseA. There is a version of indigenous ownership strategy that works very well. South Korea’s POSCO, India’s Reliance, and Malaysia’s Petronas all built globally competitive resource companies – but they did so through long apprenticeships within technically demanding supply chains, often in structured joint venture arrangements that forced knowledge transfer before the national company was asked to operate independently. The story of Foxconn and Apple in China is now very well studied. The key design feature in every successful case was sequencing: steadily increasing control as competence is demonstrated.B. Then there are cautionary tales as well. Take Zimbabwe’s indigenisation drive, which has so far failed to upgrade the calibre of local ownership of the country’s vast natural resources. As high-performing investors – both local and foreign – took a backseat, the road was open for hustlers to dominate the sector. Eventually, Chinese investors, not always from the top rungs of the capital ladder now control most mineral resources in Zimbabwe. Clearly not the stuff of “indigenisation”.9. But has any law been broken?A. We should be careful not to reduce all matters of national policy and strategy to law. There are many times when the black letter of the law can be observed in breach of all recognised best practices.B. However, in the case of the Damang lease tender, there are also important legal matters we need to keep in perspective. Under Article 257(6) of the 1992 Constitution, every mineral in its natural state in, under, or upon any land in Ghana is the property of the Republic, vested in the President in trust for the people. When the one-year transitional mining lease awarded to Gold Fields because the government misfired with its initial order for the company to vacate the site in a few weeks (a mine is not like a tent that can be folded and packed away overnight) expired on 18 April 2026, the concession reverted automatically to the state. No residual interest remained in any private party.C. This means that the Damang tender, the results of which were announced last week, was about the right to apply for a fresh lease over state-owned minerals. That right is governed by a legal framework that is considerably more demanding than the seven-day tender process allowed for.D. The principal statute is Act 703, as amended by Act 900 (2015) and Act 995 (2019). Underneath it sits five subsidiary instruments of immediate relevance: L.I. 2173 (General Regulations), L.I. 2174 (Support Services), L.I. 2175 (Compensation and Resettlement), L.I. 2176 (Licensing Regulations), and L.I. 2182 (Health, Safety and Technical Regulations). Environmental regulation operates in parallel under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1994 (Act 490) and the Environmental Assessment Regulations 1999 (L.I. 1652). Water use is governed by the Water Resources Commission Act 1996 (Act 522). Ratification transcends all these statutes under Article 268 of the Constitution.E. Together, these instruments create a process that is not a ministerial discretion exercisable in a fortnight.F. Act 703 establishes three main pathways by which a mining lease may be granted. In the first two pathways, a holder of a reconnaissance licence may, before its expiry, apply for a prospecting licence (section 34). The holder of a prospecting licence may, before its expiry, apply for a mining lease (section 39). In this sequence, the applicant has already established a prior relationship with the concession area through documented exploration activity, giving the state a record against which to assess compliance. Section 40 creates the third pathway – application for a mining lease by any other person, covering land not currently subject to a mineral right for the mineral applied for. This is the route relevant to Damang: the concession reverted to the state, rendering it unencumbered, and any qualifying applicant could in principle apply.G. The critical difference from the section 39 route is that section 40 confers no automatic right. Under section 39(2), if the prior licence holder has materially complied with its obligations, the Minister shall grant the mining lease as a mandatory duty. Under section 40(2), the Minister may grant the lease on conditions prescribed. A section 40 applicant thus stands in a weaker legal position and must satisfy a more demanding evidentiary burden.H. For a mining lease under section 40, Form 47 in the First Schedule of L.I. 2176 applies. Critically, the application must be accompanied by a programme of mineral operations, the statutory term for the plan of what the leaseholder will actually do. Under section 36(1) as applied through section 40, the programme. On receipt of the application, the Minerals Commission has five days to review the completeness of the submission.I. Practically, the initial recording and review stage alone occupies between five and twenty days depending on whether errors are identified. Within fifteen days of recording the application, the Minerals Commission must publish the application in the Ghana Gazette and notify Chiefs, District Assemblies, and other prescribed stakeholders in the area affected. Stakeholders then have twenty-one days after notification to submit concerns or objections about the application.J. Concurrently with the stakeholder notification period – or in its early stages – the Commission convenes the Institutional Technical Committee (ITC), which brings together the Environmental Protection Agency, the Ghana Geological Survey Authority, the Lands Commission, the Water Resources Commission, and the Forestry Commission. The ITC reviews the work programme and technical submission. The Commission then deliberates on the application, including the ITC’s findings, for thirty to forty days before making its recommendation to the Minister.K. Embedded between the Commission’s deliberation phase and the Minister’s decision window is a mandatory review by the Feasibility Study Committee. A mining lease application must be accompanied by a feasibility report. The Feasibility Study Committee reviews that report before the Commission completes its recommendation to the Minister. The Minister’s sixty-day decision clock does not start until this review is concluded and the Commission has made its recommendation.L. For a brownfield site with a complex cutback operation like Damang, the minimum elapsed time to produce a credible pre-feasibility study – the step below a full feasibility study – is twelve to eighteen months, assuming continuous work by an experienced multidisciplinary team with access to existing data. A bankable full feasibility study for a major open-pit expansion typically requires eighteen to twenty-four months.M. The Minister has sixty days from receipt of the Commission’s recommendation to decide on the application. If approving, the Minister issues a notification within twenty-one days specifying the approval and the applicable fees. If rejecting, the Minister must give reasons within twenty-one days. On acceptance and proof of fee payment, the Minister issues the licence to the applicant within thirty days.N. All the above is laid out to suggest strongly that the Minister is totally wrong when he suggested in his statement of April 7th that the tender committee had recommended approval of an award of a lease to E&P and that he was accepting the recommendation and authorising the procedure to give effect to the approval. At best, the tender could only have cleared the way for E&P to PROCEED TO APPLY FOR THE LEASE IN LINE WITH THE STEPS ABOVE.0. If the proper steps are followed as outlined above, the next step follows. Article 268 of the 1992 Constitution requires that any transaction involving the grant of a right or concession for the exploitation of natural resources must be ratified by Parliament before it comes into operation.P. Summing the prescribed minimum time allocations across the statutory stages, the cumulative statutory minimum from application submission to a valid, ratified mining lease – running stages concurrently where the law permits – is approximately seven to ten months. In practice, for a complex brownfield mine requiring a full feasibility study, the preparatory period before even filing the application adds twelve to eighteen months on top. UNLESS THE STATE INTENDS TO CUT CORNERS, THERE IS NO LEGAL WAY AROUND THIS.10. But Damang is a brownfield, doesn’t that make things easier?A. Surprisingly not.B. First, the tailings storage facility configuration. The Far East Tailings Storage Facility (FETSF) at Damang has an ANCOLD consequence classification of High C – the highest risk category under Australian standards, applied at Damang because Gold Fields operates to international best practice. The Stage 4 raise of the FETSF, which constitutes the final raise of the facility, was under construction as of the 2024 reporting period. The new operator must either continue this construction within tight geotechnical tolerances, or accept that tailings cannot be managed beyond the current embankment crest elevation. Damang must account for this in its programme of mineral operations.C. Second, the decommissioned East Tailings Storage Facility (ETSF) sits on the margin of the orebody at the Damang main pit. Gold Fields’ feasibility work for the cutback sequence identified relocation of a portion of the ETSF as a prerequisite for accessing the higher-grade primary ore in the main pit. This relocation is itself an environmental and geotechnical undertaking requiring EPA approval, Water Resources Commission coordination, and detailed engineering design. No bidder can credibly plan the Phase 3 cutback without accounting for this, and no feasibility study for the next phase of Damang can be considered credible unless it addresses it.D. Third, stream diversion. Phase 1 of Gold Fields’ feasibility plan included diversion of the Tamang Stream, whose course intersects the mining footprint for near-term pit development. Stream diversion in Ghana requires Water Resources Commission approval, community consultation, and hydrological engineering. It is not something an incoming operator can assume permission for on the basis of Gold Fields’ plans. The work must be based on the incoming leaseholder’s own undertakings.E. Fourth, the CIL processing plant’s specific chemistry. As discussed at length in the prior analysis in this project, Damang’s ore contains pyrrhotite and preg-robbing carbonaceous matter requiring plant-specific management through hydrogen peroxide supplementation and CIL tank configuration. The metallurgical protocols are documented in Gold Fields’ internal systems. A new operator must either obtain access to those protocols through a data-sharing agreement, or independently replicate the testwork. The latter takes months.F. Fifth, the existing environmental permits at Damang were issued in the name of Abosso Goldfields Limited. On expiry of that entity’s licence, those permits lapse or require novation to the new operator. Mining cannot recommence until new or novated environmental permits are in place. None of this can be transferred by a tender award. It requires active regulatory engagement with the EPA.G. The Mining Operating Permit issued by the Minerals Commission’s Inspectorate Division under L.I. 2182 is similarly non-transferable. Regulation 8 of L.I. 2182 requires a mining operating permit before any mining activities commence. That permit requires the mining lease and an EPA permit as prerequisites. Acquiring it is therefore dependent on the prior resolution of both the lease and the environmental permit.H. Water use permits from the Water Resources Commission, required for Damang’s dewatering operations, its process plant water supply, and its tailings water management, are separately issued, held in the mine’s own name, and must be renewed or reissued for the new operator. By the way, Damang holds multiple water use permits.11. If all the above does not make it clear, the 7-day tender period led to sham proceedingsA. A qualifying bid in the Damang tender required demonstration of at least $500 million in financial capacity. In practice, this means one of three things: equity capital already committed; a binding facility letter from a lending institution; or a combination of both. No lending institution will issue a binding facility letter for a mining project without, at minimum, a pre-feasibility study, a resource statement, and management accounts.B. As far as my investigations reveal, E&P has NEVER UNDERTAKEN a bankable feasibility study for the next phase of the Damang mine development. As a mining services contractor, it could not have done so anyway. Any feasibility studies completed by Gold Fields in 2024 and 2025 remained proprietary to Gold Fields, and cannot simply be transplanted to E&P’s equally proprietary program of work.C. E&P, entering as a fresh applicant for the full lease, cannot be in a superior position to Gold Fields for purposes of producing a credible feasibility study. It has no independent geological database, no metallurgical testwork data of its own, and no mine planning model calibrated to Damang’s ore typesD. A qualifying bid in the tender also required technical submissions a geological assessment of the mine, a mine development plan spanning ten years, and proposals for extending mine life beyond the eight years that Gold Fields’ own geological team considered feasible. A geological assessment of a mine as complex as Damang is simply not a document that could have been assembled in six working days. It is the product of weeks of desktop compilation, data room review, specialist consultation, and technical peer review. An external party without access to Gold Fields’ geological database, its drill-hole database, its resource model files, and its mine planning software cannot produce one at all, let alone in a week.E. There is absolutely no doubt that the tender was structured in a way that was formally open but practically closed.F. The plain and simple truth though is that the Minerals Commission cannot lawfully issue its recommendation to the Minister for the award of a lease, and the Minister cannot lawfully grant the lease, without the Feasibility Study Committee having reviewed a credible feasibility report. If the Commission proceeds on the basis of a development proposal that does not meet the standard of a feasibility study, the resulting lease is susceptible to challenge as having been granted in violation of the mandatory procedure prescribed in the Commission’s own licensing framework. Article 296 of the Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary and capricious exercise of discretionary power by public officials, provides a constitutional foundation for such a challenge.12. But given that the government of Ghana will own the data generated by Gold Fields, can’t it hand it over?A. It is true that the state’s possession of Gold Fields’ data could significantly reduce – though not eliminate – the pre-application preparation time for any new operator. If a bidder has full data room access to Gold Fields’ resource model, metallurgical testwork results, mine planning files, and infrastructure records, aligning the feasibility study to the prospective leaseholder’s program of operations could be compressed to about six to nine months rather than twelve to eighteen. That is still not a seven-day window.B. There is, however, a complication. Not all of Gold Fields’ data is freely transferable. Gold Fields’ resource models were developed using proprietary software (Datamine and Leapfrog, as my investigations reveal) and validated to SAMREC Code standards. The data itself – drill-hole assays, survey coordinates, and laboratory results – belongs to the state under section 71. But the interpretive overlay – the geological models, the resource classifications, and the processing recovery curves – represents intellectual property that Gold Fields may assert remains its proprietary information. In fact, I have recently done extensive work in this area wearing my ODI hat.C. More critically, the state cannot selectively hand over that data to one bidder in a competitive process to reduce their preparation time. Due process would require that all tenderers be given equal access to the dataroom.13. But if E&P already had a no-objection certificate to buy the mine in 2024, then couldn’t all this work have been done before?A. First, recall that a no-objection notice issued by the government reflects an entirely different process: transfer of mining rights between two private parties. The tender is about transfer of rights from the state to a private party. The distinction between a voluntary Gold Fields-initiated transfer during the life of a valid mining lease and the state-managed tender that followed expiry and reversion is stark.B. The letter, signed on 12 March 2024 by the then Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Professor Patrick K. Agbesinyale, stated that the Ministry had no objection to Gold Fields and E&P entering into negotiations to finalise a transaction involving the Damang asset. The letter explicitly stated that any final agreement would still require formal approval from the government. The statutory function under section 52 is vested in the Minister personally. There is a material question whether a letter signed by the Chief Director, authorising E&P to begin negotiations, carries the same legal effect as a formal Ministerial no-objection issued under section 52(1)(b). But we can let that slide.C. Under Act 703, the entity that holds the Damang mining lease was not Gold Fields Limited, the South African parent company listed on the JSE and NYSE. It was Abosso Goldfields Limited – AGL – the Ghana-incorporated operating. The mining lease runs with AGL. The lease does not belong to Gold Fields directly, and it cannot be handed over by Gold Fields directly. What Gold Fields could have sold was its 90 per cent shareholding in AGL, and that share sale would, if consummated, have made AGL a subsidiary of whoever bought the shares, with AGL continuing to hold the lease under its new corporate parent. A total different process of mineral rights acquisition.D. Section 52 of Act 703 governs the acquisition of a controlling interest in a mining company. It requires that any person proposing to become a controller of a mining company must first serve written notice on the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, stating the intention. The Minister then has two months to either issue a written no-objection or serve a notice of objection on the ground that the public interest would be prejudiced. If two months elapse without a notice of objection, the absence of objection functions as deemed clearance.E. Section 53 governs the Minister’s objection power. The Minister may object only on reasonable grounds that the public interest would be prejudiced.F. Importantly, section 52(4) provides a sunset clause: a notice of intent to acquire control lapses if the acquiring person fails to actually acquire the controlling interest within one year of the date of service of the notice.G. Had Gold Fields agreed to sell its stake in AGL to E&P while the lease still had life in it, the process would have run along these lines. E&P would have given notice under section 52(1)(a). The Minister would have had two months to consider. In the absence of objection, E&P could have proceeded. The commercial negotiation – asset valuation, plant and equipment, employee arrangements, debt assumption, community agreements, data access – would have occurred between two private commercial parties, Gold Fields and E&P, alongside the regulatory clearance process.H. Crucially, the mining lease would not have reverted to the state. AGL, as the lease-holding entity, would have continued in existence under E&P’s ownership, the lease remaining intact and in its name. The obligations of the leaseholder would have transferred to E&P through its control of AGL. Gold Fields did not agree to sell. The whole no-objection point is therefore moot.14. But doesn’t a no-objection indicate evidence of capacity and qualification?A. Not really.B. The Minister’s responding power, under section 53(1), is to serve a notice of objection where the Minister “considers on reasonable grounds that the public interest would be prejudiced by the person concerned becoming a controller.”C. The Minister is not asked to evaluate whether the incoming controller has the geological expertise to manage a complex cutback operation. The Minister is not asked whether the controller has metallurgical competence in CIL circuit chemistry. The Minister is not asked whether the controller has independently produced a feasibility study, a programme of mineral operations, or a life-of-mine schedule of the kind a mining lease requires. None of those questions appear in sections 52 or 53, because those sections are not about mining capability. It is not a mechanism for assessing the technical fitness of an operator to run a mine.D. Furthermore, the letter, signed by the then Chief Director of the Ministry, was explicit about its own scope. It confirmed that the Ministry had no objection to Gold Fields and E&P entering into negotiations to finalise a transaction involving the Damang asset. What it authorised were negotiations, not a transaction. It was also stated very plainly that any final agreement would still require formal government approval.15. You seem to be ignoring all the geopolitics of this affair; Ghana wants to stop foreigners from controlling its mineral resources and support our own!A. I completely understand that sentiment. It is one that the vast majority of Ghanaians support. But as we say in the school of katanomics, how you do things matter as much as what things you choose to do.B. Ghana has long had local content and indigenisation policies. In the 1970s, the country even nationalised mines and insisted on majority state equity etc. When we introduced small-scale mining, we insisted that only Ghanaians shall be allowed to own such mining assets. If we still feel that we are making no headway, then we must question how we do these things. The bureaucratic and policy quagmire the Damang affair is becoming is very clear evidence that the anyhowness culture won’t get us to the promised land.C. If instead of using coherent policies and strategies, we simply bend the rules to benefit specific individuals due to their regulatory influence, we may end up creating a few successful entrepreneurs, but no broadbased intergenerational success stories.D. I have doubts about whether the Damang situation is motivated by actual indigenisation policy. If Ghana wants to help its entrepreneurs own more of the country’s natural resources, the policies and laws should be calibrated to ensure that more Ghanaians undertake more high-calibre exploration to find big greenfield assets. How come the economic nationalism argument only comes up when powerful Ghanaian actors are contending with foreign companies about mines that those foreign companies have discovered and developed? We saw the same situation in the Black Volta affair and now in the Damang saga.E. Another reason why I am not too sure about the indigenisation logic is the fact that so far it is foreign companies from relatively weaker (geopolitically speaking) countries like Australia and South Africa that have lost their mining opportunities.F. One cannot avoid the unfortunate impression that Gold Fields, for instance, has been placed between a rock and a hard place, pun intended. It is fighting claims of nearly $740 million from a powerful mining boss who is poised to take over one of their two mines and needs roughly the same amount to develop that mine at the same time as their lease/development agreement is up for renewal in just over a year and must therefore be extremely sensitive to the political economy.G. For those of leftist persuasion who support economic nationalism, I wonder if they think Gold Fields is a fair target. Of the world’s five major gold mining companies, it is the only one that has an African government – South Africa, through its public pensions fund – as the largest shareholder. I thought pan-Africanism was a thing?ConclusionMy position is simple: “economic nationalism”, “seizing the commanding heights”, “local ownership”, “indigenisation”, and all those terms are heart-warming to a patriotic citizen. They are hard to quarrel with. The real difficulty is how a country creates systemic policies that truly lead a country to that end goal instead of benefitting just a few at the expense of the many.We can learn from countries like Angola that have had decades-long practices in indigenisation. In 2011, the country tightened its policies further in the Mining Code. It went even harder in 2020 through Presidential Decree 271/20, extending local-content rules across oil-sector suppliers and sharpening the definition of “national company.” In recent times, it has become clear to the Angolan authorities that much smarter policies are required to get actual results. On the positive side, countries like Malaysia and Oman have shown how skilled policymaking can deliver greater VALUE RETENTION IN-COUNTRY, which if you think about it should be the ultimate focus of any indigenisation or localisation strategy.