Chief Executive of the Minerals Commission, Mr Martin Ayisi, has stated that the nation must take its green minerals seriously given the global transition to clean energy.
He indicated that the country is lucky to have green minerals.
Furthermore, he explained that there are geological records on most of the minerals in the country already.
“In 2004 when I was doing my masters, there was a Chilean guy in my class, knowing Chile is the biggest producer of copper in the world, who told me they also have lithium. I asked myself what is that? I didn’t know what it was.
“We have to be serious as a nation. We need to treat geological investigations like the way we have treated cocoa, like the way we have treated gold as a nation.”
Martin Ayisi
He recounted how the records have existed even in his days as a youth at the commission and bemoans the nation’s delay in using the records to its advantage.
“Are you aware that this report has been in the geological records all these years? About this lithium thing, it has been there for ages to the extent that as a young officer then at the minerals commission, there was one Mrs Amoako Manu Mensa, who was the first female geologist in Ghana, wrote her thesis on it using records from the geological survey.
“I am talking about years back. Maybe at the time, we didn’t know the use for it until the recent energy transition started due to climate change. Nobody cared about these issues then. However, all these have been documented by the geological survey. Maybe it is about time we turned to the records and that is what we are doing now. Look at all these reports that geological surveys have, over fifty, sixty, seventy years.”
Martin Ayisi
He stressed that green minerals in the country have to be handled uniquely, however.
Ghana’s Readiness For A “Green” World
The British established the Geologic Survey, encompassing all minerals. He said that It is disheartening that years later, someone had to arrive and invest $185 million in the project.
He indicated that lithium’s significance soared with the advent of the energy transition; otherwise, it would have been inconsequential. Thus, he entreated the nation to acknowledge the harsh reality.
He mentioned that some doubt the warming planet, tracing it to our energy consumption but the evidential impact of coal and fossil fuels having polluted the environment with carbon, leading to a surge in global temperatures and melting ice, posing substantial threats worldwide, could not be ignored.
“You heard of one of the Presidents of the islands in the Pacific practically crying that his country is disappearing. So the world has taken a bold stance. There is this climate conference in Dubai by the end of this month, one of the things they are doing now is, that we have got to move away from the current sources of energy we use, gas, petrol, and coal, and move to cleaner ones.”
Martin Ayisi
However, oil and gas will be around for years to come. They won’t fade out too quickly. As such, significant steps are being taken by almost practically every country. He therefore urged that Ghana will continue to consider shifting towards cleaner energy, and solar, and electric vehicles should be encouraged.
With the global shift towards cleaner energies and technological advancement, green minerals and rare earths have become a treasure. These minerals are key in the production of electric vehicles, phones, and laptops, among others.
Ghana is blessed with a lot of these minerals. Data on these minerals have been well documented by geological surveys over the years.
Notwithstanding, the country has to change its exploitation strategy which the Commission has been working on to harness its potential for national interest. The Commission has therefore, under the auspices of the Ministry, amended the 2014 Mineral Policy, to reposition Ghana’s mining sector.
Subsequently, the Commission is set to engage all stakeholders this December.
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