The Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), Dr. Abena Amoah has urged leadership of the country to take ownership of its natural resources, in order to achieve the envisaged development.
Speaking at the 2024 edition of the Minerals Income Investment Fund Speaker Series at the University of Mines and Technology Tarkwa, she lamented that Ghanaians have become mere caretakers of their natural resources.
“It is time for Ghana to have a right to its natural resources,” Dr Amoah said.
The MIIF-UMaT Distinguished Speaker Series is a scholarly engagement of mining industry players or what may be referred to as a thought-leadership approach to prescribing solutions for the many challenges bedeviling mining in Ghana.
Delivering the keynote address, the Dr Abena Amoah was emphatic that there is evidence of abundant wealth in the countries which have ownership of such resources.
“According to global investors, Ghana has a superior infrastructure energy, port, rails, road and we have skilled mining labour, so I ask, why do so many Ghanaians feel poor? Why do our mining communities complain they have barely benefited from the resources we live on?
Why do so many of our young men feel so hopeless and their only way out is to risk their lives, and they know they are risking them, and all of ours by embarking on Illegal and dangerous mining activities that pollute our lands and water bodies?” she asked.
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The GSE MD further queried, “I ask; why have we dug and shipped out our resources for hundreds of years without no value addition? Why does the average Ghanaian feel so far removed from our most important economic sector?
Why is our country so broke that we needed to secure an IMF bailout of a puny three billion dollars to be disbursed to us over three years, compared to the value of resources we sit on?Why?”
She stated that “From my own research, I firmly believe the answer is because we do not own these resources. We just sit on them. Others own them. We don’t own it because ownership brings influence and decision-making rights on value addition. Ownership is what is wealth not being a citizen of Ghana.”
Dr Amoah lamented that, “We see evidence of abundant wealth when we travel abroad to the countries that own our natural resources; the UK, Europe, North America, we see them, how developed their countries are. We see evidence of abundance of wealth in countries who own their own mineral resources. We see it in South Africa, China, Australia and the others. We see ownership of their resources and the journey to wealth creation.”
The theme for this year’s MIIF- UMaT Distinguished Speaker Series was, “Mining as an asset class – the rubrics of using the stock market as a growth pole for wealth generation.”