Use royalties judiciously- Aryee

Brahabebome (W/R), Dec 10, GNA - Miss Joyce Aryee, Chief Executive Officer of Chamber of Mines, has appealed to Wassa Fiase chiefs to put to good use mineral royalties for the benefit of posterity.

She said "I say this not as an indictment but as a way in which we can all move forward because posterity will be our judges". Miss Aryee pleaded with the chiefs to partner the Chamber of Mines in a special way that would ensure that whatever sum was got from royalties was effectively managed.

She said, "I will like our grand and great-grandchildren to say that during our time we made a big difference to our communities". Miss Aryee said these at the launch of a 50 billion-cedi Five-year Development Programme at a ceremony at Brahabebome near Tarkwa by Gold Fields Ghana Limited (GFGL).

Termed ''Sustainable Community Empowerment and Economic Development (SEED)'' the programme is envisioned to be a high impact, results focused, sustainable and integrated community development that focuses on economic growth, wealth creation, improving the quality of life, empowerment through education, capacity building and infrastructure development.

Miss Aryee said most of the mining activities are centred in areas that already lack indicators that would make for high quality of life and when the mines come in, they do their best to reverse the situation. She said mining was not only about the extracting of the ore but it is also about people, so if Ghana was going to be a developed country, even a major income country in the year 2015 then mining has a role to play.

Miss Aryee said SEED programme was another project to compliment the various socio-economic developments projects implemented by GFGL and other mining communities in their host communities. She said agricultural development appeared to feature in most of the programmes in nearly every mining area due to the demonstrated potential to build upon the existing skills and knowledge in this area to increase household incomes. 10 Dec 05