Mining companies urged to take advantage of recent gold price hikes

Price of gold has soared since 2020 reaching over $2,000 per ounce

Govt putting in measures to increase local content in mining industry

Contract mining a threat to the extractive industry, Abdul-Moomin Gbana

The General Secretary of the Ghana Mine Workers Union, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, has urged mining companies in the country to take advantage of the surges in gold to make more revenue for themselves and the country.

He said the mining companies should capitalise on the price boom to invest in modern infrastructure and expand existing ones in order to produce more gold as well as to increase exploration activities.

"Gold since the beginning of last year has seen an unprecedented break-through in its price as it soared above two thousand US dollars an ounce (US$2,000/oz) towards the tail end of last year and has maintained relative stability since the beginning of this year. The World Gold Council has posited that Gold has been on a generally positive trend for the past few years," he said.

Abdul-Moomin Gbana said this at the union's review meeting in Accra adding that unlike other sectors in the economy that were negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic the mining industry continued to expand adding that this was an opportunity to create decent and sustainable jobs.

Also, he commended government for the measures it had put in place to increase local content in the extractive industry and also for its plan to introduce the Minerals Income Investment Fund Small Scale Mining Incubation Programme with a budget allocation of GH¢354 million.

The fund, he said would help transform wholly-owned Ghanaian Small Scale Mining companies into mid-tier to large-scale companies.

"As a key stakeholder in the mining industry, we find the plans of Government towards the sector quite bold and would be monitoring very closely to see to the realisation of these plans," Mr Gbana, said.

Mr Gbana noted that one of the key issues stakeholders in the industry was the issue of contract mining adding that it had the potential to threaten the stability of the industry.

"Astonishingly, this is happening at a time when the prevailing business environment is super favourable and should have reflected in the total wellbeing of the enterprise. Unfortunately, this is not the case because some of these business leaders running these multinational conglomerates would rather squeeze everybody especially the local entities and line their pockets with hefty bonuses rather than seek the total interest of all stakeholders," he said.