Ghana’s mining sector needs substantial reform to ensure that the country moves towards economically and socially sustainable mining.

Ghana President John Dramani Mahama stated in his State of the Nation Address earlier this year that the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources had been tasked with ensuring that mining in Ghana was not only undertaken responsibly, but also met community needs and expectations.

“The mining industry must create job opportunities, provide fair economic returns to the community and protect the environment. Government will rigidly enforce the laws of Ghana and address the illegal invasion by foreigners in our small-scale mining sector,” he noted.

Mahama added that this challenge had been fully investigated and the Presidency had concluded that there was an unacceptable collusion between some Ghanaians and foreigners to circumvent the laws.

He was referring to the recent spate of illegal mining operations, being undertaken on small-scale claims by foreign nationals, which had caused much consternation in Ghana.

He also stated that a series of decisive measures was under way to rid the system of corruption and to better regulate small-scale mining to create and sustain employment opportunities.

Ghana’s Finance Minister Seth Terkper informed the media in March that there was a need to develop technical capacities for Ghanaians to ensure that they were sufficiently equipped to negotiate contracts of genuine benefit to themselves.

Terkper, who was presenting the 2013 Budget in Parliament, said that, since 2000, commodity prices had been rising 75% in real terms, which placed the mining industry as one of the largest contributors to the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

He added that there were information irregularities in the negotiation of mining contracts, which tended to profit the foreign entities that invested in the mining sector.

“Government will, therefore, invest more in building technical capacities to negotiate mining contracts, which will be beneficial to the wellbeing of our people, and ongoing negotiations on existing stability agreements will be expedited to set new standards for the sector,” said Terkper.

Ghana Chamber of Mines former CEO Dr Joyce Aryee reiterated this point at the nineteenth Investing in Africa Mining Indaba, held earlier this year, in Cape Town.

Aryee, who participated in a panel discussion entitled ‘Mining’s Economic Contribution to Sustainable Development’, said that, over the years, mining had contributed to Ghana’s economic development. “However, progress in the mining sector is critical for the economic wellbeing of the people. Mining should be seen as a people-centred development activity and not a destructive one,” she said.

She added that African governments need to help with mining negotiations and cited Botswana as an example of a country that had set aside resources to fund training and development projects.

University of the Witwatersrand director of the Centre for Sustainability in Mining and Industry May Hermanus was also a panel member and stressed that there was a need for mining companies to work together, especially in the area of corporate social responsibility.