A Ghanaian mining expert, Ing. Henry Antwi is charging the country to align mining policies with successful mining countries.

Ing. Antwi who is fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy believes it’s the best way to attract mining investors into the country.

“As a country, our policies must be sufficiently competitive in the global market. We should benchmark our policies with minerals-endowed countries. That is what Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso are doing. They have taken the mining policies of Ghana and they keep on enhancing it,” he said.

Ing. Antwi was speaking at a public lecture organized by the KNUST College of Engineering.

The lecture was on the topic: “Harnessing the transformative power of Ghana’s mineral wealth for human capital development and sustainable economic growth.”

Though he pointed out Africa holds the largest global gold reserve, it’s yet to translate into economic growth.

He identified administrative bureaucracies, political influence among others as thwarting granting of mining licenses.

As a way to encourage mining investors into the country, he wants Ghana to grant tax exemptions to mining investors.

“What drives mining is exploration and countries like Canada, Australia have come out with mechanisms such tax credit to encourage exploration. It’s time for Ghana to consider value Added Tax exemptions and other taxes so that these investors bypassing us to Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and other areas will find it attractive to explore in the country,” he said.

Ing Antwi again, called on academia and Ghana Geological Survey to compile an Atlas of Mineral Potential Sites.

“When the Australian Geosites conducted such an exercise, it attracted alot of investors. These are where the Lithium is, these are where gold is and so on,” he said.

He challenged academia to develop technologies to unlock potential of critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt etc.

Vice-chancellor of KNUST, Prof. Rita Akosua Dickson was optimistic the lecture has contributed to Ghana’s inclusive growth and sustainability.