Following Parliament’s historic ratification of the Ewoyaa Lithium Mining Agreement, residents of affected communities in the Mfantseman Municipality have issued a firm two-month ultimatum for the settlement of all compensation claims.
The approval, granted on Thursday, March 19, 2026, officially hands Barari DV Limited the large-scale commercial lease to tap into Ghana’s “green gold.”
While the community has expressed relief at the end of a three-year legislative stalemate, the mood remains one of cautious expectation, as property owners await financial redress.
For residents of Ewoyaa and surrounding areas, the legislative victory in Accra marks only the beginning.
Frank Acquah, Secretary of the Concerned Ewoyaa Lithium Affected People, stressed that attention must now shift from policy to payment.
“Now that the lease has been ratified, compensation should be the next priority. The company must fast-track the process so we can be paid as soon as possible—it should not go beyond two months,” Mr. Acquah told Citi News.
The community’s anxiety stems from the prolonged approval process, which has left many property owners in uncertainty for nearly three years.
The ratified agreement also marks a shift from traditional flat-rate royalties. To ensure the state benefits from favourable market conditions, Ghana’s earnings will be governed by a sliding-scale mechanism, where royalty rates fluctuate in line with global lithium prices.
The Member of Parliament for Mfantseman, Dr Prince Arhin, moved to reassure constituents, indicating that the bureaucratic bottlenecks that previously stalled the project have now been cleared.
He pledged that compensation payments would not be delayed by further administrative hurdles.
Beyond compensation, Dr. Arhin urged the local workforce to prepare for the expected industrial expansion. He encouraged the youth in Ewoyaa to pursue technical training to take advantage of the high-value job opportunities likely to emerge when Barari DV Limited begins full-scale operations.
As the two-month deadline begins, attention in the Central Region is firmly fixed on Barari DV Limited and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to determine whether the anticipated “new era” of lithium mining will begin with a fair and timely deal for affected communities.
