The Ghana Mine Workers Union has cautioned against any moves to hand over the Gold Fields Tarkwa mines to local firms in the country.
This follows intense pressure by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) for government to decline a request for the renewal of Gold Fields’ lease for the Tarkwa mines as it approaches expiration in 2027.
The IEA had at a press conference urged government to prioritise local ownership of its natural resources as a renewal or extension would be “deeply inimical” to Ghana’s long-term economic and strategic interests.
According to IEA, local mining firms including Engineers and Planners and Rocksure have the capacity to take over operations at the Tarkwa mines in what the group described as a move that will better serve Ghana’s economic interest.
A former Chief Justice and Council of State member Sophia Akuffo called on government, labor unions and Ghanaians to oppose any effort to renew the lease.
“We are equally aware of attempts by Gold Fields Limited to court the support of traditional authorities in Tarkwa and its environs for this proposed extension. The IEA considers the requested lease renewal or extension, whatever they choose to call it, to be deeply inimical to Ghana’s long-term economic and strategic interests and therefore calls on the government to soundly reject this approach, reject it decisively while prioritizing a framework that secures meaningful Ghanaian ownership and control of the mines at Tarkwa…,” she said.
This position was supported by former Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye who argued that Ghana is in a strong position to assume control of the mining sites when the lease expires.
“In many countries in the world, governments are renegotiating contracts which are still valid. Even then, people succeed in doing so. In Libya, in the Middle East, contracts were renegotiated at the sole instance of the owners of the raw material, and they succeeded. In our case, we are even in a better position. There will be no renegotiation.
The lease, the contract will expire April of next year, just a few months to go. The question is, should we bring them back,” he queried.
Reacting to the calls by the IEA, the General Secretary of the Ghana Mine Workers Union, Abdul Moomin, urged Parliament and organized labour not to heed the calls by the IEA as a refusal to renew the mining lease of Gold Fields will drive away investors.
“Indeed, it’s within the right of the state to renew or not to renew. But we must also understand that we are operating within an ecosystem. This is a global village. There are other mining hubs within the continent. And so, in terms of visibility, we need to be mindful of the fact that FDI will move to where it’s accepted. And so, if our fiscal regime is overly tightening, what we are doing to ourselves is we are virtually warding away investors from coming into our country.
“And so, we need to be extremely cautious. And it’s also very important to underscore that the call for the lease not to be renewed and for that matter, the mine should be given to a local contractor is a call that we need to be extremely cautious about,” he argued.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
