Ghana’s mining industry must embrace innovative ways of doing things and aspire to become the mining hub in West Africa, says a financial advisor.
According to the Financial Advisory Leader of Deloitte Ghana, Yaw Appiah Lartey, the industry is becoming globally competitive but more work has to be done in achieving this.
Speaking during a webinar held by the Africa Max Mining Services Company(AMSC), on the theme, “Mining, A Key Fiscal Revenue Contributor to Africa’s Post-COVID-19 Economy”, he said for the country to achieve this,
“We must embrace innovative ways of doing things and also push hard for Ghana to become the mining hub and the driver of mining activities in the West Africa Region.”
He encouraged the industry to take advantage of the competitive season and focus on achieving this goal during and post COVID-19.
“Other countries like Nigeria are focused on the hydrocarbon but we can take advantage of the fact that we have a lot of mining businesses here and drive the agenda of becoming the regional leaders.”
Mr Lartey explained that this move will allow for innovative ideas and boost investor confidence.
He further admonished the government to support by looking at policies that will help push this drive and protect our local industry and also noted that support is needed from the fiscal side of the economy. He also asked the government to give them the needed support to attract investors.
“We should support our local mining businesses and not just support them with laws but support them to be more competitive”
Touching on technology, he asked local mining industries to start using state of the art technology in its operations and also asked the industry to reposition itself.
Talking about how the mining industry can deal with the challenging global and economic environment, Mr. Lartey admonished industries who had seen surges in their prices especially the gold sector to accelerate their efforts in producing more.
Also, he suggested stakeholder and policy makers engagement to put measures in place to support the mining sector, come to the industry’s aid and asked government to see to the export of products that has seen surge in prices.
He said also that, monetary measures should be taken to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the mining industry.
Leoncio Amada Nze, Executive President, African Energy Chamber CEMAC Zone also addressing the challenges the mining industry was facing and how investors could be of great value to help the industry, said that,
“The most important thing to do is to keep Africa as a place where investments will keep coming since we are part of the people most hit by the COVID.”
“In getting investors, we must review our fiscal policies because investors go where they can make some profit”
Mr. Leoncio said that for investments to work in Africa, we must make sure our laws and systems work properly.
Speaking on artisanal mining, Mrs. Joana Gyan Cudjoe, CEO of Golden Empire Legacy Limited noted that the small-scale mining in the country is going through challenges due to the ongoing pandemic. She said
“Changes in the small-scale mining is having both a positive and negative impact and has been a bit challenging on small scale mining in the country.”
She further went on to say that the mining communities are suffering and are faced with issues of bad roads, bad infrastructure and lack some amenities.
She called on government and other stakeholder to come to their aid.
Notwithstanding, amidst the unfortunate pandemic that has brought the mining industry some challenges, the industry is becoming a globally competitive one.
