Need for fiscal regime to ensure ‘win-win’ mining venture – Dr Manteaw
Dr Steve Manteaw, Campaign Coordinator at Integrated Social Development Centre, has called for effective fiscal regime that is sensitive and responsive to changes in market trends to ensure a win-win venture in the mining sector.
Dr Manteaw said the old fiscal terms were not the best for the country in that the system did not ensure commensurate returns in an era of boom.
He said this on Tuesday at a forum dubbed “Mining for Development organized by the Ghana Chamber of Mines (GCM) on the theme “Rising cost, Falling prices, Complications for Industry and State”.
Dr Manteaw said companies should focus Corporate Social Responsibility strategy that would emphasize ethical norms such as payment of the right taxes at the right time and called for dialogue in addressing mining challenges.
He said anything that a company did in the form of community development, until recently, had been cosmetic and often not responsive to real needs of the community and that what remained more dangerous about community development initiatives of companies was that they tended to undermine the social contract that should exist between community members and their local government.
Dr Manteaw said the country had not reaped its full benefits from mining because of the state’s own failure to identify for itself what role it expected mining to play in its national development.
“The time indeed has come for stakeholders, government, industry, and citizens alike to see mining as a development activity in which risks and rewards are equitably shared,” he said.
Dr Toni Aubynn, Chief Executive Officer of GCM, said the mining industry had contributed 27 per cent of the country’s revenue and had provided employment to thousands of people.
Mr Sulemanu Koney, Director of Analysis, Research and Finance at GCM, said the forum was to showcase and discuss the strategic partnerships that exist between the mining sector and government to reposition mining as a tool for socio-economic transformation.
He said the forum was also to provide adequate information and stimulate discussions on the prospects of mining being positioned as a catalyst for development.
Source: GNA