An Accra High Court presided over by Justice Ackaah-Boafo has adjourned the case between Exton Cubic Limited and government to Thursday, February 8, 2018.
The legal counsel for Exton Cubic Group filed an application for judicial review, challenging the revocation of the mining lease granted by former President Mahama’s government during the dying days of his National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration in 2016.
In today’s proceedings, the Deputy Attorney General, Godfred Yaw Dame, asserted that the Exton Cubic Group Limited should have written to the Lands Commission, not vice versa. This act, he claimed, was erroneous.
He also said that the company’s mining leases were not ratified by Parliament, thus the revoking of its exploration permit by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.
However, lawyer for the Exton Cubic Group Limited, Osafo Buabeng, argued that the Lands Commission should have given the company the benefit of the doubt by granting it ‘an opportunity to rectify its mistakes’.
He argued that the Lands Commission should have given the company directives on what to do instead of revoking its permits.
Background
Exton Cubic Group Limited recently sued the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources over the Ministry’s revocation of their mining permits.
The Minister, John Peter Amewu, revoked the company’s leases and licenses to prospect in the Nyinahini bauxite concession of the Tano Offin Forest Reserve, describing the company’s operations as illegal.
The officials of the company, after the revocation of the licence, indicated that they might go to court to challenge the cancellation of three mining leases for what they described as “gross abuse of executive power.”
According to them, they would do everything possible within the law to protect the legal interests of the company in rich bauxite deposits at Kyekyewere, Mpasaso and Kyirayaso in the Ashanti Region.
Two months after the revocation, the company followed through with its threat by filing the application for judicial review at the high court, hoping to reverse the decision of the government.
File photo