Newmont has created 41,000 jobs in Ghana - study

Newmont Ghana Gold Limited has created about 41,000 jobs from its Ahafo mine operations in Ghana.

These are part of the highlights of a study on the Socio-Economic Impact of Newmont Ghana Gold Limited conducted by the International Consultant Agency, Steward Redqueen.

This includes 1,900 people it directly employs and an extra 39,000 indirect jobs it supports through the supply chain of its mining operations in the Brong Ahafo region.

This was after the company in 2011 spent almost half of its total expenditure of 870 million dollars in the country.

Newmont also contributes almost 3 percent of the country's fiscal revenues in the form of taxes to Government.

Speaking to Joy Business after a working visit, Partner for Steward Redqueen, Rene Kim indicated more economic benefits could accrue if local government authorities led the way in building the capacity of local artisans and suppliers in mining communities.

“There is still a lot of procurement that happens in Ghana, about 182 million dollars. But quite a sizeable quantity of procurement also happens outside Ghana obviously because Ghana does not have big industries for these procurements which only a few countries around the world can produce.

“But there are other things that we think Ghana can produce to boost the local procurement and that's what we have been speaking to district assemblies and the regional governments about. Of course they need to be delivered on time on a reliable way and that requires capacity building to get there” he added.

According to him, local assemblies also need to collaborate more with mining firms to achieve this objective.

“When the mine started, Newmont started what it called the Ahafo Linkages Programme which sought to upscale the local people into viable businessmen. And this needs to be continued to ensure that even when the mine shuts down, the businesses can thrive like food-processing because they do not depending on only mining activities,” he said.

The study by Steward Redqueen also revealed, among other things, that the presence of the Ahafo mine had also led to an influx of people into the Brong Ahafo region whilst the economic situation of households in the mining area had also improved since Newmont started operations.