An Australian-based mining engineer and mineral economist, Ing. Henry Antwi has cited deep political influence as a major setback in exploring mineral resources in the Ghanaian mining sector.
According to him, even though Africa has 30% of the world’s mineral deposits, it remains untapped for exploration, thus contributing to pervasive poverty.
Delivering a public lecture on the topic ‘Harnessing the Transformative Power of Ghana’s Mineral Wealth for Human Capital Development and Sustainable Economic Growth’ at the Kwame University of Science and Technology, Ing Antwi observed that poor economic and administrative policies are major setbacks to the exploration of Ghana’s mineral resources.
“We need to minimize the administrative bureaucracies in granting of mining licenses, more importantly political influences in these processes. It is time Ghana considers value added tax (VAT) exemptions so that investors will be attracted to help us explore our mineral resources.
“What drives mining is exploration and as a country, our policies must be sufficiently competitive globally and we should benchmark our policies with mineral-endowed countries like Australia and Canada in order to attract investors,” Ing. Antwi said.
While calling for collaboration between academia and industry, Ing. Antwi decried the intermittent change of management of mineral companies and agencies when there is a change of government.
“Academia, government and industry must contribute to improving the sector. More importantly, academia and Ghana Geological Survey should collaborate to compile the Atlas of mineral potential sites to attract investors.
“Anytime there is a change in government, the CEO is changed, the whole board is changed because some of the board members are politicians and sometimes, they lose their seats. It doesn’t bring stability in policy development. CEOs should not be changed based on party colors but their competence,” he said.
He further lamented the lack of political will to fight the menace of illegal mining activities in Ghana.
“Galamsey as we call it, persists due to lack of commitment to fight the menace. If we come together as a country devoid of political colors, we can fight illegal mining”, he indicated.
Ing Henry Antwi challenged KNUST and other public universities to come up with programmes that will equip students with practical, innovative and technological skills to utilise emerging technologies in the mining industry.