GRi BEF News Ghana 05 - 04 - 2001
Chamber of Mines calls for review of mining
law
Accra bourse index
fails to sustain gains
Accra (Greater Accra) 05 April
2001
Ghana experienced a sharp decline
in gold production of 226,000 ounces and earnings of 41.1 million dollars,
according to statistics from the Ghana Chamber of Mines made available to the
Ghana News Agency in Accra on Wednesday.
The country earned a total of
648.3 million dollars from 2.315 million ounces of gold produced last year
compared to the 689.4 million dollars from 2.541 million ounces in 1999.
Ashanti Goldfields Company Group
made the highest contribution of 320,100 dollars from 1.144 million ounces of
gold, compared to the 1.213 million ounces valued at 340,203 million dollars in
1999.
Abosso Goldfields Company made a
gain, producing 317,696 ounces of gold valued at 90.7 million dollars against
the 1999 figure of 88,000 dollars from 303,693 ounces of gold produced.
Goldfields Ghana Limited also
posted an increase of 30,118 ounces to reach 362,365 ounces valued at 98,563
dollars.
Barnex Prestea, Limited and Dunkwa
Continental Goldfields made no contributions since the two folded up a couple
of years ago while Midras Mining Limited and Tebrebie Goldfields Limited, which
produced 1,066 and 275,634 ounces of gold, did not have figures for last year
for the same reason.
Bogoso Gold Limited, Bonte Gold
Mines Limited, Small-Scale (PMMC), Resolute Amansie Limited, Prestea Sankofa
Gold and Satellite Goldfields Limited produced a total of 138.916 million
dollars from a production of 490,583 ounces.
The report put 686,551 carats of
diamonds produced by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company at 11.5 million
dollars. Statistics are not available for Ghana Consolidated Diamonds Limited.
Bauxite production appreciated
last year, earning Ghana 12.7 million dollars from 503 tonnes collected against
the 355,260 tonnes that brought in 7.5 million dollars in 1999.
Manganese production by Ghana
Manganese Company also went up to 895,669 from 638,937 produced in 1999, which
fetched Ghana 18.5 million dollars in 1999 against 20.5 million dollars last
year.
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Chamber of Mines calls for review of mining
law
Accra (Greater Accra) 05 April 2001
The Ghana Chamber of Mines on Wednesday called for a radical review of Ghana's mining laws to enable the industry to regain the spark that made it the ultimate investment destination in Africa in the late 1980's.
"It is rather sad that Ghana's mining law, which countries in the region came for, is still stuck as it was in 1986, while those countries have restructured and improved it significantly thus attracting huge investments over the last couple of years," the Chambers' President, Mr James Anaman said.
He told a news conference in Accra that Ghana has lost its competitive edge in attracting investment to the industry because other countries had adopted and refined Ghana's Mineral and Mining Law, making them more attractive investment destinations.
He mentioned Tanzania, Guinea and Mali as some of the countries, which are fast becoming more investor-friendly mining countries, attracting major world mining companies.
Mr Anaman said recent attempts in Ghana to get some mines on line have failed due to the low price of gold on the world market and the low-grade ore, which is uneconomic to mine.
Other factors include the inability of the authorities to grant prospecting licences and give leases to prospecting companies, which had made commercial finds in the forest areas with the excuse of uncertainty about the impact of their operations on the eco-system.
Available statistics indicate that prospecting licences issued in the country dropped from 62 in 1997 to four last year.
This, according to Mr Anaman, does not augur well for the industry since a country's ability to woo investors is measured, to a large extent, by the number of prospecting licences it has been able to issue.
Mr Anaman appealed to the authorities to issue leases to the five prospecting companies to enable them to begin operations.
He expressed the hope that the country could come out of the quagmire to attract new companies and retain interest if rules and criteria in other countries, which have chalked successes are adopted.
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Accra bourse
index fails to sustain gains
Accra (Greater Accra) 05 April 2001
The Accra Bourse on Wednesday
failed to sustain its gains during recent trading sessions when the GSE
All-Share Index, the key indicator, fell flat on its belly.
The index, which for the first
time in three years went beyond the 900 point mark on Monday, shed a whopping
6.33 points, pushed down by a-25 cedi loss by Produce Buying Company (PBC) to
close at 894.02 points from 900.35 points.
Market activities remained dull as
most investors continued to shy away from the market. There were no price gains
and PBC lost 25 cedis to close at 450 cedis. The change in the year was down
from 4.94 per cent at 4.20 per cent.
Traded volumes were lower at
30,900 from 32,200. Market capitalisation declined at 3,712.41 billion cedis
compared to 3,724.41 billion cedis on Monday.
The following are the last prices
of listed equities in cedis:
ABL 630
AGC 18,500
ALW 7,000
BAT 460
CFAO 60
EIC 2,900
FML 800
GBL 1,300
GCB 1,600
GGL 900
HFC 952
MGL 212
MLC 140
MOGL 18,700
PAF 250
PBC 450 -25
PZ 621
SCB 21,700
SPPC 296
SSB 2,300
UNIL 1,750
CMLT 425
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