DAAD Alumni conference on sustainable mining ends at UMaT, Tarkwa

A four-day conference on sustainable mining has ended at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Tarkwa under the theme; Sustainable Mining, Natural Resources Awareness and Social Acceptance of Mining.

The conference dubbed DAAD Alumni conference is being organized by the Technical University of Freiberg in collaboration with UMaT and sponsored by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), also known as the German Academic Exchange Service for African students who studied in Germany and are working back in Africa.

This is the fourth time, this conference which started on Monday, November 7, and ended on Thursday, November 10, 2022, was held in Ghana.

Participants looked at issues of sustainable mining with key reference to what is happening in Ghana with respect to illegal mining and the contribution the alumni make towards it.

Giving the welcome address, the Vice Chancellor of UMaT. Prof. Richard Kwasi Amankwa noted that the theme for the conference is a right, especially when people are still struggling with small-scale mining operations.

According to him once the minerals are being exploited, there is the need “to look at the social side of things in terms of the host communities in terms of making sure that our activities do not degrade the environment and in terms of having a fair share of the profits, then indirectly we are moving into sustainable mining, and even responsible mining”.

He was hopeful, that at the end of the conference, participants will be able to get some nuggets that can be used directly to support small-scale mining in addition to the largescale mining operations, “because fundamentally, the mineral supply process is the same for both the small-scale miner and the life skill miner”.

A Research Fellow at the Technical University of Freiberg, the Technical University of Freiberg, who is also the coordinator for the DAAD Alumni conference Dr. Jiangxue Lui stressed the need to strengthen responsible mining across Africa and Ghana as a whole since the world evolves and the negative impact of the environment affects people globally.

Dr. Lui explained that “we had a study program in international management of resources and environment. After 20 years, we had a lot of graduates from this study program, so in order to contact all of them every year, we always arranged alumni seminars for them and we decided to have this year’s in Ghana, focusing on the sustainability of mining”.

She added that “we are promoting sustainability, not only in Europe because this is a global issue. We also wish to promote sustainability in the mining concept here in Ghana, because we are getting all of the resources from Africa and from other mining countries that's why it's also very important to come back to Ghana where the resources are coming from”.

Giving the Keynote Address, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Mining, Hon George Mireku Duker commends DAAD, a German Academic Exchange Services, for facilitating, sponsoring, and creating an enabling environment for Ghanaians and African students in pursuit of their education.

26 Ghanaian students both male and female, have graduated from the Technical University of Freiberg with various Degrees in various disciplines. 60 Ghanaian students have also successfully completed short-term non-degree programmes and 32 students have been additionally enrolled.

The Deputy Minister noted that the mining sector has contributed to Ghana’s economy in several ways.

“As of 2020, the Mining industry of Ghana accounted for 7.5% share of the country's GDP; 18.1% of all direct tax payments to the government, remaining the single largest tax-paying sector to the state, 48.4% of total merchandise exports in terms of mineral exports in Ghana attracting foreign investments running into hundreds of millions of US dollars annually”, he explained.

Since 2018, Ghana has been Africa’s leading producer of Gold and the World’s sixth until falling to the second largest producer in Africa in 2021 due to several reasons mainly taxation change and operational challenges some of which can, and have been corrected.

Thus, the 3% withholding tax on gold export which largely triggered a colossal amount of gold to be smuggled through Ghana’s borders to neighboring countries, has been reduced by 1.5%.

“I must say, the step taken has yielded a positive result with an indication of marginal appreciation of gold produced since January this year. Moreover, it is very refreshing to state that, the industry remained the main anchor of Ghana’s trade 3 balance as the foremost source of foreign exchange receipts in 2020. The industry is currently Ghana’s third-largest economic backbone”, Hon George Mireku Duker added.

The 2022 DAAD Alumni Conference was locally organized by Mr. Edmund Yaw Hassan and Dr Asare Asante-Annor, who is the Head of the Geological Department of UMaT, Tarkwa both Alumni of the German Academic Exchange Service.