The Ghana Mine Workers Union(GMWU) has called for increased and active local participation in the sector to check the repatriation of funds from the country.
The union says it has become critical to widen the net for more locals to engage in the extractive sector at the time that the country is grappling with a balance of payment deficit, and cedi depreciation, among others.
General Secretary of the Ghana Mine Workers Union, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, stressed that increasing indigenous investment in the mining sector is critical to salvaging Ghana’s economy.
“If you look at the small-scale mining sector, you have about 80 per cent retention of receipts from mining, 20 to 25 per cent can go out for capital expenditure and other expenses, and so clearly, if you look at the two algorithms, then clearly, the small-scale mining is more beneficial”.
“And so it means that if we increase our stake or if we are able to raise indigenous Ghanaians to participate actively in mining or the state increases its stake in these mining companies, what it does is the receipts that we generate will definitely come back into the Ghanaian shores and that we will be able to shore up our position as a country,” he explained.
The union believes that the repatriation of funds from the country abroad has a rippling effect on the local currency, making it lose value to other major trading currencies, especially the dollar.
‘The Ghana Union of Traders Associations GUTA, for instance, believes the challenge with the currency can partly be blamed on the repatriation of funds by multinationals in the country and has called for the regulation of their activities,” he added.
The Ghana cedi, for instance, is facing tough times as it traded at GHS15 to the dollar sometime last week.
The Ghana cedi has depreciated significantly in recent months and has been tagged as the world’s worst-performing currency. The cedi has lost about 45% in value throughout the year.