Former Deputy Minister of Finance, Mona Quartey has praised the Statesman, Sam Jonah for his effort in ensuring gender parity in Ghana’s mining sector.

According to her, during his tenure of office as boss of Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) the businessman ensured that the workforce at the time had a fair representation of women.

“Mr Jonah was very good with bringing women to the table to also lend their voice to decision making,” she said in the yet-to-be aired episode of Ghana’s Greats on the Joy News Channel.

This, according to the former head of Treasury at the then-Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC), created opportunities for women to venture into mining.

“When I came to Ashanti, there weren’t many women at all. It was only the head of Human Resource (HR) that was a lady. The rest of the ladies were may be telephonists. Very few women, in what you would predominantly see as female-type careers.

“Within a short time that I was there, I saw that he was targeting, recruiting women who were trained in mining as well mining related areas into the company so by 1996, we had female geologists, we had female truck drivers, we had ladies in the Metallurgy Department and these were engineers, we had female board member I mean I was hiring accounts,” she said.

Mona Quartey noted that during that period of increased female recruitment into the company, many of the underground miners were not happy to see them there due to superstitious beliefs.

“So there was a glass-wall that had to be broken and he did it in a nice way. He actually made us do it ourselves,” she stated.

The full episode of Ghana’s Greats aired on Joy FM on Monday, July 19 at 8:20 am and on the JoyNews Channel at 8:00pm.

Ghana’s Greats is a documentary series that tell the stories of phenomenal leaders and the immense contribution of these personalities to the country’s development.