The CEO of the Ghana Chamber of Mines has warned that Ghana risks losing major mining investments to neighbouring countries as Côte d’Ivoire aggressively positions itself as Africa’s top gold producer.

Ken Ashigbey, speaking on PM Express Business Edition on Thursday, said Ghana’s current fiscal regime is making the country less attractive to investors, especially as competitors in West Africa offer better conditions.

He explained that under the current structure, government’s share of mining profits is already hitting the IMF’s upper threshold of 60%.

“The upper limit is what we are hitting,” he said, warning that the burden becomes even heavier when gold prices begin to fall.

According to him, investors are increasingly comparing Ghana’s tax regime with that of countries such as Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea before deciding where to commit capital.

“If you had your money that you were putting into any company, and then you brought that into Ghana, in terms of the share of the rent, the profit that was coming, government was going to take above 60, and you have an Ivory Coast, you have other countries that were going to take less, definitely you are going to find out that you’re going to get some of your investments moved out,” he stated.

Mr Ashigbey disclosed that the shift is no longer a future threat but is already happening.

“There’s a situation with one of the mining firms that sold a property in South Sudan. The intention was to bring the resource into Ghana for some projects. That money’s moved into Cote d’Ivoire, due to the fiscal regime that is not friendly, especially the royalty,” he revealed.

He argued that the increase in royalty rates from 5% to 12% has significantly raised production costs for mining companies and is forcing firms to rethink their investment decisions.

“What you have done is that you’ve added an additional cost to the production of these mining firms,” he said.

Mr Ashigbey said Ghana’s long-standing advantages of political stability and investor-friendly laws are now being matched by competing countries.

He pointed specifically to Côte d’Ivoire’s growing ambition in the mining sector.

“Their objective is that in the next 10 years they want to be the leading producer of gold in Africa,” he said after a recent visit to the country ahead of the West Africa Mining and Power Fair.

“What does that mean? It means they want to take over from us in Ghana.”

He cited mining giant Endeavour Mining as an example of companies shifting attention away from Ghana toward Côte d’Ivoire.

Mr Ashigbey warned that Ghana cannot ignore growing competition within the sub-region.

“The geology is not restricted to Ghana,” he stressed, adding that other countries are becoming increasingly stable and attractive for mining investments.

He therefore called on government to reconsider aspects of the fiscal regime to protect Ghana’s competitiveness in the global mining industry.