The mining concern which is operating one of the largest mines in Ghana says it is making conscious efforts to integrate local communities within and around the company’s operations.
The Communications Manager of Newmont Ghana, Agbeko Azumah told journalists at a briefing at the miner’s offices in Ahafo in the Brong Ahafo region that, of the company’s 4,706 employees, about 96% are Ghanaians.
He said the breakdown are 57.25% ‘non-local’, that is Ghanaian citizens who do not come from the 10 communities within and around its concession, 38.01% of the group which the company calls ‘local-local’, “these are citizens from the 10 communities we are operating in,” he said, adding that “only 4.74% are expatriates.”
The Ghanaian government has indicated that there must be 90% of what it calls ‘local content’ in the extractive industries, by the year 2020, especially in the country’s nascent oil industry. A position, that energy advisor, Tony Paul who is advising the Ghana government on local participation in the oil industry has said the government itself has acknowledged as unrealistic and is taking a second look at.
He suggested that government must have law and formulate policy to regulate local content or local participation in the extractive industries.
Tony Paul said in pursuing the issue of local participation in the extractive sectors the country must “target areas to Ghana’s strategic interest.”
Meanwhile, Newmont Ghana Gold says since it began operations in Ghana in 2006 it has created 48,000 jobs, and the company says these are “direct, indirect and induced jobs.”
In pursuance of local participation in its activities, the company says it has established what it calls ‘Community Stakeholder Engagement’ where it puts down $1 per ounce of gold mined and 1% of its net profit are lodged into a development fund account to be invested in providing schools, and other infrastructure for local people. Mr. Agbeko said a microfinance fund has been set up to provide funding for local women in these communities.
The company believes that through these activities, it is able to address the key grievances of the local communities including the provision of employment.
However, Mr. Augustine Niber, of the Centre for Public Law Interest, who is also the first lawyer to initiate an environmental law suit in Ghana, says that the mining laws of Ghana, as they stand now, must be amended to address the issues affecting local communities where the extractive industries operate.
Source: ghanabusinessnews.com
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