Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Ken Ashigbey, has warned that Ghana’s mining tax regime has become excessive and is pushing investors to rival countries in West Africa.

Speaking on PM Express Business Edition on Thursday, Mr Ashigbey said Ghana is now hitting the upper limits of what the IMF considers acceptable in the sharing of mining profits between governments and investors.

“The IMF has a model, where in terms of the rent, the way the rent of mining is shared after you’ve taken your cost and all the profits are distributed, you are supposed to be doing between 40% and the upper limits at 60%,” he said.

According to him, Ghana is already operating at the dangerous upper threshold.

“Currently, what we are doing is that we are hitting that upper limit,” he stressed.

He explained that the situation worsens for low-grade mines, which have higher production costs. He warned that once gold prices begin to fall, government’s share could rise beyond 60%, making Ghana unattractive to investors.

“If you are an investor, and the government is 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 said.

Mr Ashigbey disclosed that this 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 Côte d’Ivoire, due to the fiscal regime that is not friendly, especially the royalty,” he revealed.

He blamed the recent royalty changes for increasing operational costs for mining firms.

“With that change in royalty from 5% to 12%, what you have done is that you’ve added an additional cost to the production of these mining firms,” he said.

The Chamber of Mines CEO warned that Ghana’s traditional advantages are now under threat as competing countries improve their own investment climate.

He said Côte d’Ivoire has openly declared plans to overtake Ghana as Africa’s leading gold producer within the next decade.

“One of the major finds that came in Côte d’Ivoire last year was in Endeavour’s find,” he noted, adding that mining giant Endeavour had already shifted focus from Ghana to Côte d’Ivoire.

He also pointed to growing mining activity in Guinea and cautioned that Ghana can no longer assume investors will automatically choose the country.

“The geology is not restricted to Ghana,” he said. “Other countries are also beginning to become stable.”

Mr Ashigbey urged government to reconsider aspects of the fiscal regime despite the passage of the law, warning that Ghana risks losing its competitiveness if urgent changes are not made.