By Issah Mohammed/ Jibril Mumuni, GNA
Accra, Aug 18, GNA – The Government has laid proposed legislative reforms before Parliament to strengthen local content and participation in Ghana’s mining sector.
The move aims at increasing opportunities for Ghanaian businesses and retaining more value from mining activities within the domestic economy.
Alhaji Yusif Sulemana, the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, made this known at the National Mining Dialogue 2026 in Accra on Tuesday.
He said the reforms formed part of efforts to strengthen the policy and legislative framework governing Ghanaian participation in the mining value chain.
The Deputy Minister explained that the Minerals Commission had already developed a Mining Local Content and Local Procurement Policy Framework to prioritise Ghanaian participation and provide a more structured basis for local businesses to benefit from mining activities.
“As I speak to you, we have some policy reforms and some other legislative reforms that we have laid before Parliament for consideration to strengthen local content that we are talking about today,” he said.
Alhaji Sulemana said the objective of local content extended beyond the number of Ghanaians employed by mining companies to include opportunities for Ghanaian businesses to supply goods and services, acquire technical skills and compete for major contracts.
He said stakeholders must also assess the extent to which mining companies were transferring technology and knowledge to Ghanaians and how much of the value generated by the sector remained in the country.
“Are Ghanaian businesses getting opportunities to supply goods and services and developing the capacity to compete for large contracts?” he asked, adding that the industry must also determine whether young people were acquiring skills that would remain useful after individual mining operations had closed.
The reforms come amid broader government efforts to overhaul Ghana’s mining regulatory framework.
Cabinet approved a new mining legal framework in July 2026 aimed at strengthening mineral licensing, local participation and community benefits.
Alhaji Sulemana said building the capacity of Ghanaian businesses was critical to making local procurement a strategic tool for national development.
He also called for deliberate investment in skills development, saying mining communities could not simply demand employment from mining companies without preparing their people with the requisite knowledge and technical capabilities.
The Deputy Minister, therefore, urged communities in mining areas to deliberately pursue education and skills development aligned with the mining industry to enable their people to take advantage of employment and business opportunities created by those operations.
He said communities could not simply demand employment from mining companies without ensuring that their young people acquired the requisite technical skills and knowledge needed by the industry.
“If they come and the people do not have the skills, you cannot compel them to employ them (the youth),” he said, urging stakeholders to train local people so they could take advantage of opportunities created by mining investments.
He further urged mining companies to transfer skills and technology to Ghanaians and enable young people in mining communities to view the sector as a pathway to employment, entrepreneurship and business development.
Alhaji Sulemana said the Government would continue to engage stakeholders on reforms aimed at ensuring that mining generated broader economic benefits for Ghana.
He urged participants at the dialogue to translate their recommendations into concrete proposals for consideration by the Ministry, warning against a situation where conferences generated good ideas that were not implemented.
The National Mining Dialogue brought together government officials, traditional authorities, regulators, mining companies, small-scale miners, gold buyers and other stakeholders to deliberate on local content, corporate social responsibility and the social licence to operate.
GNA
Edited by Agnes Boye-Doe