Dr Mahamodu Bawumia, Flag-bearer of NPP
Bawumia Outlines Golden Age Of Natural Resources Maximisation.
The Vice President of the Republic, Dr Mahamodu Bawumia has outlined a series of measures aimed at ensuring that our natural resources are maximized.
Addressing the general public at his Next Chapter event in Accra on Wednesday, Vice President Bawumia put forth some of these measures.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, as President, I will usher Ghana in a Golden age for the maximization of the benefits from our natural resources like gold, lithium, bauxite, and so on”, the Veep stated.
He added that the key to doing this is value addition and Ghanaian ownership. We need a new paradigm in natural resource contracts.
Details:
Some of the key policies which will be implemented to maximize our benefits from our natural resources will include:
• Formalize, regularize and regulate environmentally sustainable small scale mining. About one million people are engaged in small scale mining. Our goal would be to help grow small scale mining companies into large scale tcompanies with capacity building and assisting them to access financing to acquire equipment. We can create many millionaires in the small scale mining industry if we support them.
• My government will support the Minerals Commission and key stakeholders to formalize the Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM) sector with the objective of ensuring that the activities of the entire value chain are sustainably and responsibly done so that most of the gold produced by this sector can be sold to the Bank of Ghana (BoG) and be eligible to be part of the gold reserves of the central bank.
• In line with this, we will license all miners doing responsible mining . Districts Mining Committee (including chiefs) will provide initial temporary licenses to miners.
Additional Information:
• As long as miners mine within the limits of their licenses (e.g No mining in river or water bodies), there will no longer be any seizure or burning of excavators.
• I will fully decentralize the minerals commission as well as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and ensure that they are present in all mining districts.
• Every Ghanaian in Small Scale Mining will register under Ghana Small Scale Miners Association with their Ghanacard
• We will, in collaboration with the large mining companies, convert abandoned shafts into community mining schemes
• Open more new community mining schemes
• District mining committees should be responsible for reclamation and replanting
• Pension scheme for small scale miners like we have done for cocoa farmers.
• Introduce vocational and Skills training on sustainable mining for small scale miners in the curriculum of TVET institutions.
• Provide equipment to government authorities in mining communities to undertake reclamation of land
• We will set up state of the art common user gold processing units in mining districts in collaboration with the private sector.
• My government will also conduct an audit of all concessions with various licenses and new applications. This will allow government to know licenses that have expired, and non-compliance with licensing conditions.
• To encourage exploration, I will abolish the VAT on exploration services (like assaying) to encourage more exploration.
• We will establish, in collaboration with the private sector, a Minerals Development Bank to support the mining industry.
• We will establish (through the private sector) a London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) certified gold refinery in Ghana within four years.
• All responsibly mined small scale gold produced will be sold to the central bank, PMMC or MIIF and will be required to be refined before export, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia told the gathering.
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