Need for a comprehensive review of mining sector law

Dr. Steve Manteaw, Campaign Coordinator of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), a civil society group, is worried about the manner and approach government adopts in amending the Minerals and Mining Act, which leaves the sector confused.

To this end he has called for a holistic and a comprehensive review of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703), which has faced various delays. The amendment was initiated in 1999 and went through various stakeholder consultations and independent review in 2001, and has been before cabinet for the necessary scrutiny since 2014.

“We all recognised that from the start we should have had a minerals and mining policy but we did the law first before contemplating on a policy, and now that we have the policy in place I think we have to embark on a holistic and comprehensive review of the mining Act to avoid continuous confusion in the sector.

“This gets all of us confused in terms of what is happening with the Act, I think we need to call for a holistic review of that law so that we stop that piecemeal amendment here and there,” he said.

Dr. Manteaw observed that Ann Sherry Aryeetey, the former Minister of Environment, Science and Innovation took the lead to amend some sections of the Mining Act; she set up a committee chaired by Tony Lithur. The Minerals Commission refused to cooperate and everything got messed up, and nothing happened on the ground.

The Minerals Commission has in recent times also been championing amendment to some portions of the Act, and now the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources is attempting some amendment, too.
Dr. Manteaw made this disclosure at a Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) Dissemination Workshop for members of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ).

Organised with support from the GIZ, the workshop was aimed at equipping and exposing journalists on reporting the extractive sector to ensure transparency and accountability and also monitor revenues in the industry.

Making a presentation under the topic ‘Concept, Principles, And Policy Impact of GHEITI’, Dr. Manteaw said natural-resource wealth, if managed well, can contribute to sustainable economic growth, national development, and poverty reduction; and that sovereign governments have a responsibility to manage natural-resource wealth for the benefit of their citizens.

“The benefits of resource extraction occur as revenue streams over many years and can be highly price-dependent,” he said.

The National Coordinator of Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Mr. Franklin Ashiadey, said the only credible way to reduce the high expectations among citizens about the country’s natural-resource endowment is to enhance transparency and accountability by disclosing and publishing government receipts as well as extractive companies’ payments.

“GHEITI through its independent reports has set the pace for government decisions to carry out reforms in the extractive industry, hence ensuring that the tenets of transparency and accountability in the industry are protected and upheld,” he stated.

Lauding the 2012/2013 GHEITI reports which were prepared in line with the new reporting standards, Mr Ashiadey said the report went beyond reconciliation of payments and receipts to provide information on the legal and fiscal regime, the sector’s contribution to the economy and state participation, among others.

He mentioned that the new EITI reporting requirements encourage the provision of relevant and reliable information and are part of the revised EITI standards which were adopted in Sydney, Australia in May 2013 -- aimed at improving the quality of transparency and broadening the scope of disclosure.

“The new EITI reporting requirement raised the EITI reporting bar significantly and it is expected to improve the quality of transparency and generate a great deal of useful data which make the EITI standards more robust, more relevant and a stronger tool for citizens to demand accountability,” he said.

He said the reports also identified various weaknesses within the extractive sector revenue institutions and provided recommendations to strengthen them.

“Already, the recommendations of the EITI reports have informed a wide range of policy reforms -- not only in the mining sector but also in the new oil and gas sector,” he said.

Mr Ashiadey hopes that the EITI will help accelerate the pace of reforms in the extractive sector to help both the government and private sector.

The EITI is a global standard for the governance of a country’s oil, gas and mineral resources, and it is implemented by governments in collaboration with companies and civil society.

The publication of reports providing details of extractive industry payments and government receipts is a requirement of the initiative. Ghana signed onto the initiative in 2003 to enhance transparency in the extractive industry.