Former Goldman Sachs Vice President Flags Agyapa As Bad Deal For Ghana

A former Vice-President in charge of Equity Research Metals and Mining at American multinational investment bank, Goldman Sachs, has flagged the Akufo-Addo government’s proposed Ayapa Minerals Royalties deal as a screw-off for Ghana if it goes through.

Daniel McConvey notes in a recent tweet that the proposed deal is destructive to the mineral royalties endowment of the Ghanaian people.

“I’ve been around gold royalties and royalty companies since 1987 (when I joined Barrick) and I appreciate the value of gold royalties and how their values grow. The proposed deal would be value destructive to the Ghanaian people in my view.”

He adds, “Accordingly, learning of the proposed deal last year hit a nerve.”

Mr. McConvey is also a former Vice President of Equity Research Metals and Mining at Lehman Brothers and currently Managing Member at Rossport Investment LLC.

The controversial Agyapa Mineral Royalties deal had in 2020 been flagged by then Special Prosecutor, Martin Amidu, as festooned with corruption.

In it, the government of Akufo-Addo proposes to mortgage 37% of the country’s mineral royalty receipts for some 15 years for between US$500 million and US$750million. Interestingly, Ghana makes at least US$100million from these same royalty receipts every year.

As the government’s math refuses to make sense, details about who will manage the special purpose vehicle to be listed on the London Stock Exchange are not exactly clear.

In 2020, Amidu’s investigation into the deal ended on a tumultuous note when re deflected an alleged attempt by President Akufo-Addo and Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta to influence