….Asks Watchdogs to Watch Harder
The Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) has surpassed its 2025 royalty targets, reporting 5.43 billion units against a projected 4.91 billion. But rather than simply celebrate, its chief executive used a civil society roundtable to urge watchdogs to sharpen their gaze.
“We recognise that public trust has been affected in the past,” said Justina Nelson, MIIF’s CEO. Her remedy: regular stakeholder engagements and accessible financial data. She blamed past criticism on “incomplete narratives” a formulation that may not satisfy seasoned sceptics.
An institutional overhaul. Over the past 16 months, MIIF has created dedicated Compliance and Risk departments, driven by Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles. Whether these units have real independence or merely paper authority remains to be tested.
Strong numbers, unanswered questions. CFO David Awuah Mensah said MIIF is now entering 2026 “from a position of strength”, having already broken first-quarter collection records.
The Fund’s three pillars: maximise royalties, optimise investments, build institutional capacity. All laudable. But Ghana’s sovereign wealth fund has long struggled with transparency over how mining revenues are allocated and spent.
New bets. COO Kwabena Barning revealed MIIF is eyeing stakes in Newcore Gold, Kambale Graphite, Atlantic Lithium, and producing mines like Damang and Bogoso.
More notably, the Fund plans to invest $530 million in the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector, which generated an estimated $13 billion last year. The goal: unlock up to 500,000 ounces of gold. The risk: ASM is notoriously difficult to formalise and monitor.
Downstream ambition. A proposed $400 million electrolytic manganese plant and potential lithium processing facilities are also on the table. The aim is to stop exporting raw minerals. But Ghana has heard such promises before.
CSOs cautiously encouraged. Franklyn Cudjoe of IMANI Africa praised MIIF’s “openness to difficult questions”. Patrick Stephenson of the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) called the engagement “a positive shift”. Both added a quiet warning: sustain it.
The unspoken test. MIIF is asking civil society to deepen oversight just as the Fund reports record revenues. That is sensible. But in Ghana’s extractive sector, past “transparency drives” have often faded once the cameras left. Whether MIIF’s version will differ and whether its books truly match its boasts is a question that CSOs, and this newspaper, will keep asking.