Mineral royalty contracts killing economy

Prof. Mrs. Esi Awuah, Vice-Chancellor-University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani, says the failure of Ghana to train the requisite human resource for effectivemanagement of the abundant natural resources has over the years denied the country its fair-share of benefit from minerals production.

She said: “Because we don’t have enough resource enterprise entrepreneurs, the country always opts for royalty agreements in negotiating mineral resources contracts.

This creates a vacuum for investors to exploit the country in the management of resources, thereby denying us the actual economic benefits”.

Prof. Mrs. Awuah was speaking in a meeting with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forestry who were on tour of the Brong Ahafo Region as part of its oversight duties. She stressed the need for Ghana to broaden the mineral resources entrepreneurship base to aid in the management of reserves.

“A strong and sound resource enterprise will facilitate productivity level agreements, which is the trump card for rapid economic development. Most the Middle-East countries are praiseworthy with their resources due to productivity agreements wherein profit is shared equally,” she said, adding: “It is therefore imperative for government to support institutions like UENR, which has what it takes to train the requisite human resources for effective minerals management.”

Touching on the activities and programmes of the University, the VC said UENR has the capacity to produce the needed seedlings for reclaiming the depleted forest areas in the country.

“In the first year of the institution, inaugurated in December 2011, we raised about 400,000 forest tree seedlings, of which many were sold out -- and we plan to produce about one million this year.”

The University is therefore calling for effective collaboration with the Forest Service Division of the Forestry Commission for an intensive reforestation programme. “UENR wants the Commission to make lands available while we provide the manpower and seedlings (indigenous and exotic) for a proper reforestation exercise,” she said.

The VC also used the platform to make a passionate appeal for GET Fund to release funds for fast-tracking infrastructural projects ongoing at the University. According to her, the excessive delay by the Fund in releasing money is worrying. UENR inherited lecture halls with maximum capacity of 30 from the then-Faculty of Forest Resources Technology of KNUST in Sunayni. Those halls are too small to host its growing population.

The University Authorities further raised alarm about the tendency of losing its land allocated for future satellite campus developments to encroachers. UENR has a 2,000-acre land each at Dormaa-Ahenkro and Nsoatre, and another 75 acres at Mim.

The fear is that government is yet to pay compensation to the various landowners to facilitate processing of land titles in the name of the University -- thus putting their tenure of the land at risk.

By Edward Adjei Frimpong | B&FT Online | Ghana