Co-chair of the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative GHEITI), Dr Steve Manteaw, has indicated that Ghana’s natural resources sector is missing vision as a guide for stakeholders to drive development in Ghana.
The National Technical Advisor for the UK-Ghana Gold program, speaking to happyghana.com’s Kobina Baidoo described the absence of a clear-cut plan in the sector as what has left Ghana to a disadvantage in resource benefits for the states.
Dr. Manteaw speaking as an expert on the resource governance revealed that other nations develop a vision that gradually leads to the attainment of resource benefits from the natural resource. “For countries benefitting from their natural resources, the first thing they do before implementation is sit down and formulate a natural vision to influence the laws and acts that will be enshrined in the constitution to ensure that they gain the topmost benefits from the resource.”
Ghana, he says is not able to thrive in the sector due to the absence of this vision. “In Ghana we have no vision for our gold sector, in fact we have no vision for our minerals sector. And that is the only reason we will mine manganese and get it exported when we have iron and can be combined with the iron ore to form steel.” he stated.
Dr. Steve Manteaw and a number of stakeholders in an ongoing review of Ghana’s constitution by the Constitution Review Committee for reforms, look forward to ensuring that the necessary amendments will be made to make sure Ghana gets value for its natural resources.
