A pressure group Young Democrats has accused the Akufo-Addo administration of sidelining the Trade and Industry Minister Alan Kyerematen.

This comes on the back of what the group calls the non-involvement of Mr Kyerematen in the government’s engagement with the Chinese for the $15 billion facility.

The group even believes that the arrangement announced by the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia after his trip to China will not be ideal for Ghana.

Dr Bawumia recently indicated that “The goal of government is to leverage our natural resources for economic transformation.”

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He said Ghana has over 460 million metric tonnes of alumina, which could fetch the country about 460 billion dollars when refined.

“We have immediate infrastructure needs of say between US $15 to 20 billion in areas such as rail, water, energy and so on. So we have US $460 billion potentially sitting in the ground somewhere and we need US$ 20billion for our rapid economic transformation.”

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“So we need development partners to refine this bauxite, but we want to develop it in Ghana. That is why we want to set up a refinery in Ghana so we can refine and export.”

The vice president was speaking at a China-Africa Joint Research and Exchange Programme organised by the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG).

But speaking to Accra-based Starr FM, Dr Luther King, the convener of the group, Young Democrats, said that leveraging Ghana’s resources especially bauxite for the aid is disastrous.

He said: “we want to industrialise and we have employed the Minister of Trade and Industry [Alan Kyeremanteng] to lead that drive. But he is sidelined.”

Dr King further wondered why Dr Bawumia embarked on the trip to China without the Trade Minister when the deals that were agreed on directly affect that Ministry.