Ghana’s lithium lease agreement with Australia’s Atlantic Lithium is still the greatest mining lease for the nation, according to Minister of Lands and Natural Resources Samuel Abu Jinapor.

The government has been under increasing pressure to reevaluate the agreement, but the statements and justifications offered by the government apparatus give a different impression.

Compared to other mineral agreements, the government claims it will receive 13 percent in royalties with a 30 percent stake in Atlantic Lithium.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the Minister of Lands defended the agreement, stating that Ghana will benefit from it and that the nation is keeping as much of the top end of the value chain as possible.

“Green minerals, lithium, energy transition, and all of that, our president and his government have insisted that we treat these minerals differently from other minerals in the past, which is why we have come up with a policy on the management, exploitation, and utilization of the green minerals of our country, including lithium.”

“We have signed some deals with Atlantic Lithium, but we have done all of that in a manner that is fundamentally different from what we did in the past and most importantly, the remarkable difference between what we did in the past and what we are doing now is that we are retaining the highest end of the value chain as much as possible.”