Policy on mining should link up with economy

Mr Emmanuel Kuyole, Africa Regional Co-ordinator of the Revenue Watch, which is based in the United States, has said any mining policy document must not only be transparent but made in a way to link up with the economy. By so doing, he said, it would improve the living conditions of the people but cautioned that laws and regulations in respect of mining must be rigidly enforced. Mr Kuyole, who was speaking at a meeting of the Greater Accra Regional Council of Labour at the week-end, said if there was no permanent policy document there should be one in place immediately. "The manner licenses are issued to mining companies and later telling them about policy hastily written is unacceptable", he said. Mr Kuyole said there was also the need for government to ensure that there was in place a gold laboratory where purity of the mineral could be tested. Mr Kuyole said the present situation where minerals were taken out of the country to ascertain purity was improper because the miner could pronounce any figure as coming from results of testing and it could be true or false. He proposed that special fund from mined minerals should be set up rather than going into the consolidated fund and that amount should be used judiciously to the benefit of the people. Mr Kuyole suggested that government conduct employment audit of all mining companies in the interest of Ghanaians and this should ascertain which jobs could be done by Ghanaians but offered to a foreigner.