Total volume of gold produced declines – 2022 EITI report

• Posted on June 8, 2023June 8, 2023
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The total volume of gold produced declined from 4.577 million ounces in 2019 to 4.023 million ounces in 2020, representing a downturn of 12 percent, the 2022 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Mining & Oil and Gas report has revealed.

The volume of manganese produced by the Ghana Manganese Company (GMC) also plummeted from 5.383 million tonnes in 2019 to 2.358 million tonnes in 2020, representing a decrease of 56 percent.

Bauxite production also increased from 1.116 million tonnes in 2019 to 1.162 million tonnes in 2020, recording a 4 percent year-on-year growth in its output, it added.

“The volume of bauxite produced increased from 1.116 million tonnes in 2019 to 1.162 million tonnes in 2020, recording a 4 percent year-on-year growth in its output. Receipts from the export of minerals represented 48.4 percent of the country’s total merchandise export revenue in 2020. The relative contributions of crude oil and cocoa were 20.1 percent and 16.1 percent in the same year respectively.

“Proceeds from the export of minerals increased from US$ 6.678 billion in 2019 to US$ 6.998 billion in 2020. This translates into a 4.8 percent year-on-year expansion in mineral revenue. The total number of persons employed by the large-scale mines as at 2020 was 34,363. This comprised 8,760 direct employees and 25,603 contractors. The proportion of Ghanaians in the workforce was 98.7 percent,” the report said.

The Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) has today, formally launched the country’s 2020 Mining and Oil/Gas EITI reports, published on December 31, 2022. The MSG is a tripartite body made up of Government, Industry and Civil Society, with the responsibility of steering the affairs of GHEITI. The production of the reports was funded by the World Bank through the Extractive Global Programmatic Support (EGPS) Grant.

The compilation of the 2020 report brings to nineteen (19), the total number of mining reports so far produced and published since Ghana acceded to the initiative in 2003. For oil and gas, the 2019 report is the tenth (10th) since the initiative was expanded to cover the sector in 2010.

The reports, which are published in conformity with the 2019 EITI Standard, go beyond the mere reconciliation of payments and receipts, to include contextual information such as the summary description of the legal framework and fiscal regime, the sector’s contribution to the economy, production and export data, state participation in the extractive industries, revenue allocations, sustainability of revenues, license registers and license allocation, and several other requirements of the Standard.

The reports were jointly launched by the Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, who also doubles as the Champion for GHEITI, and the Deputy of Minister of Lands and Natural Resources responsible for Mining, Hon. George Mireku Duker.