SYPALA: Africa must strengthen expertise to secure better deals – Festus Aboagye

‎‎Retired Colonel Festus Boahen Aboagye has called for greater reliance on African technical expertise when governments negotiate major infrastructure, mining and resource agreements with foreign partners, arguing that the quality of such agreements will determine whether Africa’s natural wealth translates into lasting development.
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‎Speaking on Thursday, August 27, 2026, at SYPALA 2026, where he led a conversation on “Africa in a Multipolar World: How Can Africa Identify Its Voice, Agency and Influence in a Multipolar World?”
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‎SYPALA, which stands for the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy, is an annual educational program run by the IMANI Center for Policy and Education.
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‎Colonel Aboagye said African countries must ensure that experts, civil society organizations and relevant institutions are involved in negotiations to prevent corruption, exploitation and unfavourable terms.
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‎”So, the things that go into the agreement are where we want Africans, not cabinet members. I know who is a cabinet minister. Who is a minister? Do you get the point?” he questioned.
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‎”So, let the politicians go to them, or the institutions go to them, and tap into the expertise, so we get a fairer deal for the African country,” he said.
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‎He said experts must also determine the condition and lifespan of the infrastructure at the end of the concession.
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‎”Now, what the integrity of the structure will be at the end of the 27 all of that, the African country must be able to sit down using its experts and then determine that optimally, if we allow China to operate it for 27 years, the infrastructure will still be there like a motorway.”
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‎He argued that technical expertise does not necessarily come with political office.
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‎”Some have first degree honors, some have maybe Master’s, but they have Master’s in history or geography. But when it comes to agreements, when it comes to technology, there are other citizens and other institutions within the country who have that expertise.”
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‎”So, they said, ‘No, the agreement must be revised, it must be reviewed, it must be whatever it is.’ I think it did.”
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‎He said the concentration of expertise and processing capacity outside Africa continued to weaken the continent’s bargaining position.
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‎”But the point is that the people in the value chain of bauxite processing again are not in Africa,” he said
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‎”If you change the dynamics, they can decide not to buy your bauxite, which is why the bauxite has been sitting there for donkey years,” he added.
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‎Colonel Aboagye said governments must therefore examine the terms of resource agreements carefully and involve a broad spectrum of citizens.
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‎”Those are the issues. The question is: what was going into the agreement? And the terms. And did the government of the day involve the broad spectrum of Ghanaians, including civil society organizations, to make sure that the room for corruption or exploitation, if you like, was minimized?”
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‎He said such developments showed why African countries must strengthen their collective bargaining power and expand trade among themselves.
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‎”Whatever we do, the partners will exploit our weaknesses in order to maximize the benefits that they have from the resources that we have.”
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‎”They will wait until a certain government comes, and you don’t know that some of our ministers, not currently, across the board, have or may have been influenced by Western partners,” he said.
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‎”They can invite you somewhere, Brussels, and give you the $1 million, for instance, that we’re talking about, or 20, whatever million, in order to come back and write the terms or skew the terms in such a way that Ghana loses,” he added.
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‎He therefore urged citizens and institutions with access to decision making processes to use their positions to protect national interests.
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‎”They can invite you somewhere, Brussels, and give you the $1 million, for instance, that we’re talking about, or 20, whatever million, in order to come back and write the terms or skew the terms in such a way that Ghana loses,” he said.
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‎He said strengthening intra-African trade would give the continent another avenue to exercise its voice, agency and influence in the global economy.
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‎”That’s one way I think we can leverage, you know, the voice and the agency and the influence that we have.”