Author: Bright Simons

* * * Of Murky Beginnings Heath Goldfields announced its first gold pour on 19th February 2026. The mine had been dormant for two years. Fourteen hundred workers, the company said, were back on payroll. The Trafigura offtake agreement for 700,000 ounces of gold doré, with $65 million in debt...

I have been inundated with messages from all quarters following my earlier article on the issue of the Damang mine controversy. After my appearance on Newsfile today, the messages spiked. I sense a lot of confusion due to incessant misinformation and spin so I am writing this follow-up article to...

It is a heroic saga made in Ghana. A homegrown company rises from contract mining to full ownership of a major gold mine. A local champion finally takes command of one of our most strategic assets. What’s there not to cheer? But this story is why the katanomics framework was...

I have been busy but this matter is important A crowded desk has put me behind on Ghana’s news and current affairs. Since I write mainly about policy, and policy matters are always voluminous, backlogs build up dramatically. Meanwhile, persuading those who ought to be most interested in policy –...

Ghana’s Cocoa Reckoning March 2026 In 1906 a Basel missionary named Josef Mohr sat in the Gold Coast and wrote a report dripping with omens. Cocoa was a blessing, he allowed. But watching greed bloom alongside the pods, forests felled, and children pledged as collateral, he could only sigh. His...

1. A Chiefly Banker moves in to corner GoldBod financing deal The Chairman of LVSafrica is a traditional chief, Chair of state-owned enterprises, and the decades-long former CEO of a major multinational bank in Africa. While many of us were shouting ourselves hoarse about GoldBod’s losses and whether GoldBod could...

Gas, Ghosts, and the Art of Surviving-to-Win in a Katanomic Market On 12 March 2026, the President of Ghana stood on the edge of a South Korean shipyard and commissioned a gas Nigerian vessel. Pan-Africanism notwithstanding, this is not a regular occurrence, I assure you. The HD Hyundai Heavy Industries...

Gas, Ghosts, and the Art of Surviving-long-enough-to-win in a Katanomic Market On 12 March 2026, the President of Ghana stood on the edge of a South Korean shipyard and commissioned a Nigerian vessel. Pan-Africanism notwithstanding, this is not a regular occurrence, I assure you. The HD Hyundai Heavy Industries yard...

Introduction: China edges out the West Just a little over a year ago, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) concluded from its survey of the field that China is ahead of the United States in 90% (57 out of 64) critical technologies which are defining the future of economic power...

No one can quarrel with “value addition”. It is a sweet phrase for those of us from African countries, like Ghana, that seem to have missed the industrialisation boat. But as I recently explained, the term is rather nuanced since every raw material base, to which “value” may be added,...