Ghana has an opportunity to begin to look at “greener” ways of mining – CeSIS

Ghana is currently witnessing the unprecedented destruction of her natural resources like never before in its history.

In key mining districts, illegal miners – popularly known as galamseyers – are destroying forest and land resources in a way that raises questions about their ability to be good stewards of the resources bequeathed to the people.

These illegal miners, mostly young people, destroy these resources with careless abandon, ignoring sustainability concerns.

“Over the years the contribution of the youth to our development has been downplayed. This is partly as a result of the country’s own inability to meet the needs of the youth, especially in the areas of employment, inclusive development and access to socio-economic opportunities,” said a statement signed by Robert Tanti Ali, Executive Director of Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS).

CeSIS is a research and advocacy non-governmental organisation committed to supporting communities impacted by the operations of mining,

In commemoration of International Youth Day (IYD), CeSIS calls on the government of Ghana to take steps to push for green mining in order to save the environment.

The day recognizes the key contributions of the youth in national development and this year’s theme is: “Green Skills for Youth: Towards a Sustainable World”.

In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, it is essential to equip young people with the green knowledge and skills they need to solve environmental issues.

Initiatives spearheaded by young people are essential for accelerating progress toward a greener society.

According to CeSIS, this year’s theme for IYD gives Ghana an opportunity to begin to look at “greener” ways of mining, which remain the backbone of the economy.

“The rate at which the country is losing its forest resources leaves no one in doubt that in the next decade, Ghana will not have a single forest reserve unscathed from the menace of galamsey. When this happens, we end up imperiling the flora and fauna that sustain human life. There is therefore an urgent need for the state to take bold, realistic and decisive action to save our future. And this will mean supporting the youth with requisite knowledge, skills and technology to make a life for themselves,” said a statement. 

Mining ‘green’ for sustainability

CeSIS believes that the state should take every step necessary to empower the youth who have a passion for small-scale mining to do so in a greener and more sustainable way in order to preserve the environment for the next generation, while raking in economic benefits.

The organization has called on the government to look at four critical areas:

1. Ban the use of harmful chemicals like mercury and cyanide in the mining industry as a whole, and in particular in small-scale mining. There are already some mercury-free machines like the “gold katcha”, introduced by Commodity Monitor that can be popularized by the regulatory agencies.

2. Introduce innovative ways of mining to small-scale miners. Innovation will ensure that miners are able to recover more of the gold, and further reduce negative environmental footprints as a result of mining. Miners who breach this ban should be punished according to law.

3. Update geological information and make this available to interested miners. This step is particularly necessary to prevent the “trial and error” method of mining where miners keep digging up land till they hit ore bodies, by which time they might have caused significant destruction

4. Promote land reclamation among small-scale miners. There are currently innovative ways of ensuring land reclamation, and that includes undertaking massive afforestation initiatives in mined out areas.

 

CeSIS recommends amendment of Petroleum Revenue Management Act

The Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS) has recommended an amendment of the Petroleum Revenue Management Act that outlines as many as 14 priority areas for petroleum revenue to be expended.

The policy advocacy group says revenues from the sector should rather be concentrated on not more than three priority sectors whilst other areas are catered for through regular budgeting process.

Petroleum revenues present government with an additional source of funding to execute different development agenda.

But CeSIS has expressed worry at findings in the Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) reports on the quality of spending of petroleum revenues over the years.

According to the 2013 PIAC Report, an amount of 23 million Ghana cedis earmarked for capacity building from 2011 to 2013 went into the procurement of goods and services for the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) as well as an additional two million cedis to support the creative industry.

“While admittedly these expenditures are all towards national development, CeSIS is nevertheless worried about a creeping perception that petroleum revenues are "free monies" that should be allocated to any sector of the Ghanaian society,” said the group.

The PIAC report has recommended that government conducts an immediate evaluation of the effectiveness and impacts of all the projects and programmes that have been funded with revenues from the petroleum sector.

The report also says government should “focus its expenditure under the capacity building priority area on interventions that will directly enhance the capacity and capabilities of Ghanaians to play a bigger role in the emerging oil and gas industry as envisaged in the Local Content Policy and Regulation”.

A long-term National Development Plan (NDP) remains crucial to guide the utilization of oil revenue in order “to have a consistent application of the resources to planned projects”, says the African Center for Energy Policy (ACEP).

Executive Director of CeSIS, Richard Ellimah, says the spending on capacity building, for instance, should be restricted to three areas.

These include support to regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Petroleum Commission to undertake specialised training in oil and gas regulation; provision of equipment and modern machinery to the regulatory bodies to enable them regulate the sector; and training of a corps of young Ghanaians in oil and gas to be positioned to capture key managerial positions and skilled vocations in the oil and gas industry.

The PIAC was established under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act to provide a public oversight over Ghana's oil and gas industry.

But CeSIS is disappointed at the lack of support for the Committee.

Mr. Ellimah says in the face of mounting corruption allegations and concerns over misuse of petroleum revenue, it is imperative that PIAC is strengthened to perform its oversight role well.

“For purposes of transparency and accountability, government has a duty to empower this committee and ensure it builds the needed confidence in the public that their oil and gas resources are being utilised efficiently to support national development,” he said.

Executive Director of ACEP, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, has observed the integrity of Ghana’s oil and gas resources will be better protected when PIAC is given a strong legal status.

He believes such capacity is critical to enable the Committee undertake its own independent analysis and technical work on the use of the country’s oil revenues.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh 

From gold to ghost towns – salvaging resource rich communities in Ghana

Some extractive industry watchers are skeptical about AngloGold Ashanti’s return to mine in Obuasi after its announced two year break to restructure operations.

The mine has been put under “care and maintenance” following operational losses recorded in recent times, a situation that has resulted in the retrenchment of over 5,000 employees.

“Basically we have some challenges with the production levels and the cost of production is also high, the gold price has gone down so there is the need to re-strategize and see how the mine can become profitable in the future,” said Aboagye Ohene Adu, Senior Manager in charge of Sustainability at the AGA Obuasi Mine.

But Dr. Steve Manteaw of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) is cynical about the company’s come back.

“In my view you could still re-strategize without closing shop; scale down your operations and then you do your re-strategizing before scaling up your operations,” he observed. “I guess it would have been more difficult for government to accept and allow them to go if they said they were closing shops for good and I think the easier way would be to say ‘we are putting the whole mine under care and maintenance’ such that, in terms of the negotiations around that it would be much easier for them to exit.”

 

The inherent danger, according to Dr. Manteaw, is that the mining concession could be opened up to illegal mining or ‘galamsey’ invasions which could affect future prospective investor’ attraction.

However, based on the existing 6.5 million ounces of ore deposits currently available at Obuasi, Mr. Ohene Adu is positive gold prospecting in Obuasi could thrive for at least 17 years if AngloGold’s redevelopment is properly undertaken.

“We are trying to put in certain initiatives in partnership with the government to ensure that the communities here also become sustainable as we move along,” he said.

The AngloGold Ashanti mine is the backbone of the economy of the Obuasi municipality and four other adjourning districts as well as a key foreign exchange earner for Ghana.

Apart from the impact of the latest development on direct employment, peripheral services that feed off and depend on the mine would be hardest hit. The company would also withdraw funding of existing social services in the areas of health, education and sports.

Woes of local mining communities

Sanso is a predominant mining community in Obuasi. Local assembly representative, Benjamin Annan, says livelihoods are negatively impacted because there are no alternatives to mining for local communities.

“When the mining was underground, we were not having problems because we are farmers, but now surface mining has affected our farms. Now Sanso is ghost town; we can’t farm, we can’t have access to the mine because we’re not skilled labour and our source of livelihood – artisanal mining – is also closed,” he complained.

AngloGold has been engaging interest groups to offer alternative livelihoods that would protect local communities from turning into ghost towns, says Mr. Ohene Adu.

“The company alone cannot take the burden,” he noted, stating that some local economic initiatives are being thought through to create employment opportunities.

Richard Ellimah, a community rights activist and Executive Director of NGO, Centre for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS), says the company’s two year break is an opportunity to begin the process of designing an alternative industrialization programme for Obuasi.

“It was a long term decision we should have made. Everybody should have understood that there will come a time when the mining company will fold up; either they will find mining no longer profitable and they’ll leave or the ore will get depleted,” he observed.

According to Mr. Ellimah, Obuasi can sail through the current crisis if sustainable small scale mining is promoted alongside agriculture.

He therefore wants the Minerals Commission and AngloGold Ashanti to consider ceding off part of the mining concession for small scale miners to begin operations.

“If we have people in town who have the requisite capital and want to do mining, there should be available land for them to do their mining because for small scale miners, their operations don’t generate so much cost and they are indigenous companies who would not just fold up because gold price has fallen and the money will stay in the town,” stated Mr. Ellimah.

The Obuasi Municipal Assembly is already looking forward to improved working relations with AngloGold Ashanti when the mine is reopened for business.

Isaac Appiah Nsiah, Municipal Budget Officer, expects that “there should be more transparency with regard to how we generate revenue and how the communities are going to benefit from that. The Assembly itself is going to open up to the communities so that they would also know what they are getting from AGA and what we are utilizing the money for.”

Integrating mining into national economy

Nana Owusu Akyew Brempong of the Adansi Traditional Council is seeking divine intervention for AngloGold Ashanti to resume operations after the downscaling exercise “because we have suffered a lot and the Lord will change things for us”.

Ghana has failed to integrate its gold resource into the national economy after over 100 years of commercial mining.

Dr. Steve Manteaw says the Obuasi experience is a bitter lesson for Ghana to ensure that the extractives sector serves as conduit for sustainable development.

“When you as a policy want to integrate the resource into the rest of the economy, then you want to make a departure from collecting your royalties in cash to collecting them in kind as raw material gold so that you supply that raw material gold to the domestic jewelry making industry; when you do that you’ll be creating jobs, you’ll also be creating tax opportunities for financing local and national development”, said the ISODEC Coordinator.

In adding value to Ghana’s gold exports, Dr. Manteaw added that there is a multiplying benefit of integrating gold into the local economy, including tourism, as people troop to Ghana to experience the reflections of the “Gold Coast”.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh