Owiredu appointed MD of AGC

THE Managing Director of SAG, a subsidiary mining company of Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) Limited in Guinea, Mr Daniel Owiredu, has been appointed the new Managing Director of AGC's Obuasi Mine. He takes over from Mr Alan Dods, a South African national who has ended his four-year duty tour at the Obuasi mine.

A statement issued by the Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited in Accra yesterday said by his appointment, Mr Owiredu becomes the second Ghanaian to assume the position since its establishment 105 years ago after Mr Sam Jonah, the current Chief Executive and Group Managing Director of Ashanti.

A product of Adisadel College and a graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Mr Owiredu, who is a mechanical engineer by profession, enrolled with Ashanti as an Assistant Engineer after his national service in 1984.

The new Managing Director, who also holds an MBA from the University of Strathclyde's Business School, Scotland, UK, later rose to the top position as Chief Engineer Underground a little over a decade after working in various capacities in engineering, projects, winders, planned maintenance and training departments for almost 17 years.

As a member of the team that planned and implemented the Ashanti Mine Expansion Project (AMEP), a project which transformed the company into a multinational one, he was subsequently appointed manager for the company's Bibiani Gold Project in 1996 .

Experts in the mining industry view the appointment of Mr Owiredu as refreshing, given the significant successes he has chalked up during his tenure in Guinea.

They are of the view that he will bring the immense experience he has acquired over the years to bear on the Obuasi mine.