Expedite action on mining licenses – Veep

Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has challenged the Minerals Commission to expedite action on the processes in the acquisition of the new mining licenses.

He said the building of a one- stop-shop to deal with the mineral licenses and related payments would go a long way to ensure effective and efficient regulation of the mining sector.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur gave the challenge when he inaugurated the Minerals Commission’s New Head Office Building at Cantonment in Accra.

The new facility which is in keeping with the government’s vision is to make the Commission a One-Stop-Shop organisation for effective and accountable in the management of mineral rights and related revenues.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur stated that the government last year developed a new minerals and mining policy to establish a comprehensive framework for mining to catalysed sustainable development.

He said to achieve the goals of the framework the Commission was task to improve its infrastructure and systems to reduce delays in the acquisition of mineral rights.

He said it is the delays that lead people to become informal in the way they operate, adding that the commission should develop a system to manage the activities of small scale miners.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur commended the Minerals Commission for the innovation by relying on internally generated funds to construct the new head office as well as using local engineer to build the edifice.

He tasked other government subverted agencies to learn from the example of the Minerals Commission and wean themselves of government’s support.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur also stated that in the last three decades the minerals sector has gone through significant challenges and at various points in the 70s and 80s could not attract the level of investments to maintain the growth of the economy.

He said the sector was characterised by falling production levels, inadequate machinery and poor infrastructure that contributed to reducing unemployment and loss of skilled personnel in the mining sector.

He said in the economic reforms in the 1980s identify the minerals sector as one of the sectors that has the potential to enhance the country growth and development.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur stated in three decades of its existence the mining sector could boost of major successes, adding that for the last decade alone about $ 15billion of investments has been put in into the sector.

He said currently the sector contributes slightly more than two percent of GDP, about 40 per cent of the country’s merchandise export and about eight per cent of the tax effort over the past decade.

He said the sector also employs about 120,000 people directly.

Mr Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, Deputy Minister of lands and Natural Resources, He expressed the belief that the one-stop-shop process would go a long way to enhance the operations of the commission.