Ghana Mine Workers Union calls for increased local participation

As the country’s economy continues to struggle and the cedi rapidly depreciates now might be the time to consider active local participation in the country’s extractive sector.

The Ghana mine workers union believes this is critical to checking the repatriation of funds from the country abroad which have contributed to the dire state of the country.

General Secretary of the Ghana mine workers union, Abdul-Moomin Gbana stressed that increasing indigenous investment in the mining sector is critical to salvaging Ghana’s economy.

“If you look at the small-scale mining sector, you have about 80 per cent retention of receipts from mining, 20 to 25 per cent can go out for capital expenditure and other expenses and so clearly, if you look at the two algorithms then clearly, the small-scale mining is more beneficial”

“And so it means that if we increase our stake or if we are able to raise indigenous Ghanaians to participate actively in mining or the state increases its stake in these mining companies, what it does is the receipts that we generate will definitely come back into the Ghanaian shores and that we will be able to shore up our position as a country” he added.

The Ghana cedi for instance is facing tough times as it at some point last week traded at GHS15 to the dollar.

The local has depreciated significantly in recent months and at the beginning of the week, the cedi was noted as the world’s worst-performing currency.

That took its losses this year to more than 45 per cent.

The Ghana Union of Traders Associations GUTA for instance believes the challenge with the currency can partly be blamed on the repatriation of funds by multinationals in the country and has called for the regulation of their activities.

Mr Agbana spoke to Citi Business News on the sidelines of a workshop on the gold mining sector organized by Public Services International.

The two-day regional workshop on the gold mining sector was to identify tax incentive regimes in the sector and estimate the loss to domestic resource mobilization and, while learning from other experiences, provide information on the implication for resource sovereignty, public service development, jobs, and sustainable development.

 

Source: Citi Business News