as NPP Mobilises Labour Protests
TNR File
In a week where Ghana’s industrial patrimony became a political football, businessman Ibrahim Mahama has issued a blistering denial of allegations that he is manoeuvring to acquire the state-owned Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), threatening defamation suits against what he calls a co-ordinated disinformation campaign by opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) operatives.
The controversy erupted on Monday, 27 July, when VALCO’s labour union staged a demonstration at the Tema smelter, with protesters alleging that President John Mahama’s younger brother was positioning himself to take control of the 1967-vintage facility.
The protest swiftly amplified on social media by NPP communicators has exposed the raw nerves surrounding Ghana’s strategic industrial assets and the intersection of family ties, political power, and resource nationalism.
Yet a closer examination of the events reveals a more complex picture: one where an opposition party, still smarting from electoral defeat, appears to be weaponising labour grievances to tar the Mahama administration with the brush of dynastic plunder without producing a single piece of documentary evidence linking Ibrahim Mahama to any bid for VALCO.
In a statement issued through his special aide, Rafik Mahama, the businessman categorically stated: “Ibrahim Mahama has no such interest and has not made any offer to acquire VALCO.” The statement characterised the allegations as “the latest in several vile attempts to impute his integrity” and confirmed that legal proceedings would be initiated against the purveyors of the rumour.
Notably, the statement did not specify targets, leaving open the possibility that it could include individual NPP activists or even party officials a move that would test the boundaries of political speech in Ghana’s increasingly polarised climate. For a businessman whose empire spans mining, logistics, and agriculture, the threat of litigation signals a determination to draw a clear line between legitimate enterprise and political character assassination.
The opposition’s digital machinery has been working overtime. Kofi Nkansah Ofosu, a former government appointee and prominent NPP communicator, posted a video of the VALCO demonstration with the caption: “Tema: VALCO workers demonstrate against expected takeover of Valco by Ibrahim Mahama.
They ask whether he is the only Ghanaian because of his quest to grab all our Natural resources.” He followed up with a scathing comparison: “Akufo-Addo has retired and is still living in his Father’s house in Nima. He didn’t build even a single house as President. Meanwhile the Mahamas are grabbing all our Natural resources like there is no tomorrow. Posterity!”
Another party activist, Enoch Kofi Nyarkoh, went further, circulating a flyer that christened the businessman “IGRABhim Mahama” a crude play on his name and the alleged “grab” agenda. The flyer listed “Black Volta Gold Project, the Damang Gold Mine, VALCO” and asked: “What is next?”
The rhetoric is deliberate: it seeks to paint the Mahama family as an acquisitive monolith, with the President as the political enabler and his brother as the corporate executioner. But nowhere in the avalanche of posts is there a single tender document, board resolution, or ministerial directive confirming any approach to VALCO’s shareholders or the state’s privatisation unit.
VALCO is no ordinary company. Established in 1967 as a cornerstone of Ghana’s industrialisation drive, the smelter has been a symbol of state-led development and, more recently, a liability.
The government holds a 90% stake, with the remaining 10% controlled by the Volta Aluminium Company Limited (VALCO) itself. The plant has operated intermittently, plagued by power shortages and high energy costs, and its future has been a subject of perennial debate.
Any serious attempt to acquire VALCO would require a competitive bidding process, parliamentary oversight, and the approval of the Public Procurement Authority none of which has been initiated.
The Mahama administration has not announced any privatisation plan, nor has the Ministry of Trade and Industry issued any statement regarding VALCO’s disposition. In this vacuum, the NPP’s allegations appear to be less about evidence and more about political theatre.
Ibrahim Mahama’s business interests are undeniably vast: his company, Engineers & Planners, holds stakes in gold mining (Damang), bauxite, and agricultural ventures.
But his defenders note that these acquisitions were conducted through transparent processes the Damang mine, for example, was purchased from the global miner Gold Fields in a deal that passed regulatory scrutiny. The longevity of his holdings through seven electoral cycles, they argue, suggests that he operates within the law, not above it.
Yet the VALCO controversy touches a sensitive nerve: the perception of a president using his office to enrich his relatives is a charge that has dogged many African leaders, and the Mahama administration is acutely aware of the optics. The government has so far remained silent on the VALCO matter, perhaps calculating that Ibrahim Mahama’s legal counter-offensive will suffice.
For Ghana’s labour unions, the VALCO protests reflect genuine anxiety about job security and the future of the smelter, not necessarily allegiance to the NPP. The workers have long complained about underinvestment and erratic power supply, and they fear that any new owner whether Ibrahim Mahama or another might prioritise exports over local employment.
But the NPP’s exploitation of these fears for partisan gain raises troubling questions about the state of Ghana’s political discourse. In the absence of credible evidence, the party’s communicators are peddling innuendo as fact, using social media to bypass traditional fact-checking. The danger is that such tactics, if left unchallenged, will erode public trust in both private enterprise and state institutions.
Ibrahim Mahama has promised to name names and file suit. Whether he follows through and whether the courts will entertain defamation claims against political actors remains to be seen. What is clear is that VALCO has become a proxy battlefield in a larger war over Ghana’s economic future, and the true victor may be neither the businessman nor the opposition, but the murky forces of misinformation that thrive in the gap between allegation and proof.