Engineers & Planners (E&P), the Ghanaian firm at the center of a gold mine acquisition, has clarified what it calls "misleading and false claims" regarding its purchase of Azumah Resources Ghana Ltd, a gold concession in the Upper West Region formerly owned by Australian interests.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, July 8, detailing the legal battles surrounding the acquisition, E&P revealed that it entered into a $100 million agreement with Azumah's shareholders on October 9, 2023, months before Ghana's 2024 general elections.
The company insisted that all key milestones, including the agreement to buy the project and an offer letter from the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) to finance it, occurred prior to the elections. "Let the record show, the acquisition contract was signed in October 2023 at our Roman Ridge offices in Accra, with payments scheduled in two equal parts," part of the statement read. "Claims that this is a post-election arrangement or politically motivated are completely false." Azumah Resources had held the gold lease since 1992 but failed to commence any significant operations over a 30-year period.
By 2022, the company owed the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Minerals Commission over $5 million.
