The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has inaugurated a Negotiations Team to lead talks with a strategic investor to modernise and expand the Volta Aluminium Company Limited (VALCO).
The team has been mandated to negotiate definitive terms of engagement with a credible strategic partner to retool the Tema-based aluminium smelter and restore its operational efficiency and competitiveness.
Inaugurating the team in Accra on Friday, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, stressed the Government’s commitment to revamping VALCO into an efficient, profitable and globally competitive enterprise while safeguarding Ghana’s strategic interests in the aluminium value chain.
He charged members of the team to conduct the negotiations with transparency and diligence and ensure value for money, emphasising that VALCO remained a critical national asset that must not be allowed to collapse.
The negotiations are expected to assess prospective investors based on their technical capacity, financial strength, experience in smelter operations and commitment to making long-term investments in Ghana’s aluminium industry.
The move comes amid serious operational difficulties at VALCO, with the number of active cells falling from 127 in 2025 to about 90 as of August 2026.
The decline has been attributed to ageing equipment, power constraints and supply chain challenges, which have affected the company’s ability to operate at optimal capacity.
The Negotiations Team comprises representatives from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC), the Ministry of Finance, the Attorney-General’s Department and the Chief Executive Officer of VALCO.
The Ministry has assured workers, stakeholders and the general public that the process does not amount to an outright privatisation of VALCO.
Rather, the Government intends to bring on board a credible strategic partner to provide the capital required to modernise the plant, improve its operations and secure jobs.
VALCO was established in 1964 as part of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s vision of using power generated from the Akosombo Dam to develop an integrated aluminium industry.
The Tema smelter was designed to operate more than 200 pots, with an annual production capacity of 200,000 tonnes.
The government acquired 100 per cent of VALCO’s shares in 2008 after Kaiser Aluminium exited the company. However, the smelter has since faced challenges, including unreliable and expensive power, ageing rectifiers and carbon plant equipment, and inadequate capital for retooling.
The current search for a strategic investor follows a policy direction approved by Cabinet in 2022, after GIADEC and VALCO sought approval to secure an equity investor for the modernisation project.
A comprehensive technical and financial assessment conducted by KPMG in 2022 also recommended equity investment as the most commercially viable option for reviving the smelter.
GIADEC, established in 2018 to spearhead the development of Ghana’s bauxite-to-aluminium value chain, has maintained that the Government does not intend to sell VALCO but would cede a portion of its equity to a strategic investor in exchange for capital injection and retooling.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
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