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Mr John-Peter Amewu, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, has said government would examine traditional ceramic raw materials to commercialise it to support the One District One Factory policy by the New Patriotic Party Government.

     He said: “These minerals were the lesser known minerals which were not part of the normal streams of traditional minerals that we have, what we want to do is to do a bit of further studies in it and from my outfit I think we can classify these minerals and put them under one district one factory.

     “Materials to produce pebbles for the ECG is imported into Ghana. If we can get a small factory to produce it, of course it qualifies under our agenda of one district one factory and bring in prospective investors to mine them so that the concentration is taken out of the traditional mineral like gold and bauxite,” he said.

      Currently 10 million metric tonnes of clay is abounded in all regions of Ghana as a gift of nature and together with the requisite skills from experts clay is transformed to serve technical and domestic needs of citizens.

      Mr Amewu said this when he toured the agencies under his ministry on Wednesday and assured them of the ministry's commitment to solving their challenges.

     The tour was to enable him to familiarise with the agencies, access their working conditions and share with them the vision of the Government in the next four years.

     The Minister visited the Forestry Commission and the Ghana Geological Survey Authority (GGSA) where a staff durbar was held to formally introduce him to the staff and management of the institutions.

     Addressing the staff of the GGSA, Mr Amewu said the Ministry would help the Authority to expand and maintain a modern National Seismic Network to monitor earthquakes, tsunamis and mine blasts that had the potential to impact negatively on persons and property in the country for optimum land-use-planning. 

     He said to address the numerous challenges of the GGSA such as inadequate resources, poor infrastructure, low remuneration and lack of opportunities for training staff, the Ministry would push for the implementation of the Minerals Development Fund Act 2016, Act 912 which would give the GGSA a share of the mineral royalty paid to government.

    “These with other financial releases from the normal budget will bail the GGSA to some extent,” he said.

     Dr Daniel Boamah, the Acting Director of GGSA, said his outfit was willing to work effectively with the sector minister to yield a solid synergy to move the sector forward.

     The Chief Director of the Ministry, Professor Bruce Kofi Baneong-Yakubo, and Mr Benito Owusu-Bio, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forestry, accompanied the Minister.