The Ghana Chamber of Mines (GCM) has reiterated its vision to champion Ghana's sustainable development especially in the communities, as it prepares to celebrate the centenary of mining in Ghana.It said, the sustainable development agenda would be anchored on a respected leadership, responsible mining and leveraging the mineral resources of its members.The Chief Executive Officer of GCM, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, declared on Friday, when the new leadership met journalists at a media engagement in Takoradi, in the Western Region.He added "Our vision of what we want to be and what we have been doing over this century is to be the respected, effective and unifying voice for the mining industry in Ghana.
We believe that our predecessors have done a great job at that."And so for some of us, the 'Latter Day Saints' that have come on, the vision is to be able to continue to entrench this agenda as we get into the next century, and also provide upheavals for the generation."Touching on industry prospects, Dr Ashigbey indicated that, to ensure the future of mining , the Chamber needed to conduct and invest more in explorations as there were signs of enough gold underground in Ghana, which could last for the next 900 years.Presently, only three firms were undertaking reconnaissance and prospecting activities with one of them prospecting for almost 10 years, he said.However, the CEO complained about the issue of paying taxes upfront when operators had not begun production, saying " so what will happen is that, we will be destroying the prospects of all the income that we are able to generate."Dr Ashigbey spoke about some members providing mining services even globally, and creating jobs, and called for a conversation on taxation on mining in Ghana and also to expose those involved in illegal mining operations, to safeguard the health of communities and the local economy.In terms of volumes ( gold output), he said, the good news was that, the chamber achieved an all time high target of 4.8 million ounces in 2024, growing by point 8 million ( 19.3 per cent growth) from the 2023 performance of 4.0 million ounces."Ghana recorded a broad based increase in production of traditional minerals in 2024.The historic level of gold production enabled Ghana to retain its position as Africa's leading gold producer and the sixth largest gold producer, globally.
Ghana accounted for 2.8 per cent of global gold output in 2024, an improvement over the 2.6 per cent recorded in 2023," he added.Manganese production, he told journalists, also showed a rise from three million tonnes in 2023 to five miilon tonnes in 2024 while diamond improved from 0. 202 million carats in 2022 to 0.332 million carats in 2024.Bauxite too, saw an increase of 76. 5 per cent from 0.959 million tonnes to 1.694 million tonnes over the same period, Dr Ashigbey stated. FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, TAKORADI
