Ibrahim Mahama’s E&P accused of espionage in $250m gold fight

Engineers and Planners, the mining company owned by Ghanaian billionaire Ibrahim Mahama, has been accused of waging a campaign of industrial espionage to wrest control of a major gold project from its international investors, according to allegations reported by the trade publication Miningmx and denied by the company.

The claims were made by James Wallbank, managing partner of Ibaera Capital, the private equity firm behind the investment in the Black Volta gold project in northern Ghana. Wallbank alleges that leaked emails, which Miningmx said it reviewed, show a coordinated effort to undermine existing shareholders and pave the way for E&P to take control of an asset he values at about $250 million. E&P has rejected the allegations and denied any wrongdoing.

Ibrahim Mahama is the brother of Ghana’s president, John Mahama, and the ownership link sits at the center of the story. E&P is his company. He has not been personally accused of directing the alleged conduct, which Wallbank attributes to directors of the investment vehicle Azumah Resources, its legal adviser and others. The dispute is due to reach an arbitration hearing in London in September.

The project at stake is a significant one. Black Volta is widely regarded as one of the most important undeveloped gold projects in West Africa, and control of it has become a test case for the tension between Ghana’s drive to put more of its mineral wealth in local hands and the confidence of the foreign investors the country still needs.

Wallbank laid out his accusations at Mining on Top, an investment conference in Paris. He said Ibaera had deliberately appointed E&P and Ghanaian directors to Azumah to demonstrate its commitment to local participation, only to find, in his telling, that those same parties turned against the company. “Instead of supporting our investment in Azumah’s Black Volta mine, these Ghanaian directors, our legal counsel, and others waged a campaign of industrial espionage and sabotage to seize our Black Volta gold mine and shares in our company worth $250m,” he said. He alleged they had a fiduciary and legal duty to act in good faith but instead “acted as agents conspiring against us.”

The most striking of his claims concerns Azumah’s own lawyer. Wallbank alleged that the company’s Ghanaian legal counsel secretly prepared legal documents against Azumah while still being paid to act on its behalf, and copied that correspondence to E&P executives and figures now in government. According to the emails described by Miningmx, the lawyer told recipients that an injunction had been served on Wallbank barring him from certain steps, and suggested it would buy E&P additional time to secure financing for a proposed acquisition. Minutes later, Miningmx reported, a recipient replied: “Thank you very much Sir Bobby. Excellent job.”

None of these allegations has been tested in court, and E&P has denied them in full. Miningmx reported that there are no allegations of wrongdoing against South African miner Gold Fields or a director copied on the correspondence, and that Gold Fields declined to comment.

The row feeds into a wider political argument in Ghana. President Mahama’s opponents have accused him of favoring his brother’s company through policies designed to increase Ghanaian ownership of mineral resources, and have argued that Ibrahim Mahama’s businesses rank among the chief beneficiaries of that push. Earlier this year, E&P won a contested tender to operate the Damang gold mine after the removal of its previous operator, Gold Fields, a development that drew wide attention across the region’s mining industry.

The government has acknowledged missteps. Theophilus Agbenyezi of Ghana’s Minerals Commission conceded that mistakes had been made and said the state was committed to rebuilding investor confidence as part of an economic reset the president announced during a recent visit to London. “Yes, the government has made mistakes,” he said. “It is absolutely important to work with international investors to bring money to Ghana.” He described the challenge ahead as fixing the problems and restoring trust in the sector.

Wallbank framed his experience as a warning about Ghana’s standing with foreign capital. He said Ibaera fully supports efforts to ensure Ghanaians benefit from their natural resources through partnerships that combine international money with local expertise, but argued that the Azumah affair had damaged the country’s reputation. “The Azumah experience has been bitter for everyone involved,” he said, adding that it left an unresolved question of whether resource nationalism could be delivered “while maintaining a genuine respect for the rule of law and fair play for international investors.”

The London arbitration in September is expected to examine aspects of the dispute between E&P and Azumah’s international backers. Until then, the competing accounts remain untested, with serious allegations on one side and a blanket denial on the other.

The outcome will shape more than the ownership of a single gold project. It will signal how far Ghana can press its resource-nationalist agenda without deterring the foreign investment its mining industry continues to rely on.