Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has thrown his weight behind President John Dramani Mahama's reset agenda, calling the push to process Ghana's minerals locally rather than export them raw a necessary move toward real economic transformation.
Speaking on his behalf at the Mining in Motion conference on Monday, Nana Okyere Kusi Ntrama, Essumejahene, said the strategy remains sound even with the controversies trailing the Ghana Gold Board.
He argued that retaining more value from the country's natural resources could help break a cycle of poverty that has persisted for generations.
Rooted in Ghana's Founding Vision
Nana Okyere Kusi Ntrama traced the policy direction back to the earliest days of the republic, drawing a direct line between Mahama's current approach and Kwame Nkrumah's own ambitions for the mineral sector.
"Over the past year, the controls of the new agenda have become whatever we make of the minerals in the ground and the government's mineral policies.
"Regardless of the controversies surrounding the Gold Board, there should be no doubt that the nature of the President's reset agenda takes us right back to the very foundation of our republic, when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah sought to harness our minerals and move to establish a gold refinery in Tarkwa." - Nana Okyere Kusi Ntrama
He described the current mineral policy direction as an opportunity to finish what Nkrumah started decades ago, strengthening domestic value addition so Ghana actually profits from what comes out of its own ground rather than watching that value captured elsewhere.
The endorsement adds a significant voice to the ongoing debate around GoldBod and the broader reset agenda, with the Asantehene's camp framing the policy not as a departure but as a continuation of a long-standing national aspiration that predates the current administration by decades.
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