The total volume of gold produced in the country decreased from 4.577 million ounces in 2019 to 4.023 million ounces in 2020, the 2022 Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) report on mining, oil and gas report has revealed.
This represents a 12% decline in the production of the precious mineral.
The report also indicates that the volume of manganese produced by the Ghana Manganese Company (GMC) also decreased from 5.383 million tonnes in 2019 to 2.358 million tonnes in 2020, representing a decrease of 56 percent.
However, bauxite production increased from 1.116 million tonnes in 2019 to 1.162 million tonnes in 2020, recording a 4 per cent year-on-year growth in its output.
“Receipts from the export of minerals represented 48.4 per cent of the country’s total merchandise export revenue in 2020. The relative contributions of crude oil and cocoa were 20.1 percent and 16.1 percent in the same year, respectively.
The report further highlighted that “Proceeds from the export of minerals increased from US$ 6.678 billion in 2019 to US$ 6.998 billion in 2020. This translates into a 4.8 percent year-on-year expansion in mineral revenue.
On employment, the total number of persons employed by large-scale mines as of 2020 was 34,363.
This comprised 8,760 direct employees and 25,603 contractors. The proportion of Ghanaians in the workforce was 98.7 percent.
The Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) formally launched the country’s 2020 Mining and Oil/Gas EITI reports, published on December 31, 2022.
The MSG is a tripartite body of government, industry and civil society, with the responsibility of steering the affairs of GHEITI.
The World Bank funded the production of the report through the Extractive Global Programmatic Support (EGPS) Grant.
The compilation of the 2020 report brings to 19 the total number of mining reports produced and published since Ghana acceded to the initiative in 2003.
The report was jointly launched by the Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Dr. Mohammed Amin-Adam and the Deputy of Minister of Lands and Natural Resources responsible for Mining, George Mireku Duker, on June 7, 2023.