The mining sector in 2020 contributed approximately 41 percent of total exports earnings, 14 percent of total tax revenues, and 5.5 percent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), says AlhajiBashiru Abdul Razak, Coordinator for the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (GHEITI).
Gold contributes more than 90 per cent of Ghana’s total mineral exports and made up 49 per cent of the country’s total export value as at December 2020.
According AlhajiRazak data from Bank of Ghana ,indicated that spot gold price averaged US$1,799.79 per fine ounce in 2021, a marginal increase of 1.6 percent compared to US$1,770.77 per fine ounce recorded in 2020.
But, on the export side, he said gold exports receipts in 2021 amounted to US$5.08 billion compared to US$6.80 billion in 2020, stressing that “the decline was largely driven by a decrease in export volumes, even though prices were higher.”
He was speaking at a stakeholder dissemination workshop to discuss the 2019 GHEITI Reports for the mining and oil/gas sectors, here on Thursday.
The volumes of gold exported, he said, decreased by 26.8 per cent, to 2,820,094 ounces, mainly due to a decline in small scale gold production, while the average realised price increased by 2.2 per cent to US$1,802.5 per fine ounce in 2021.
However, he said, the value of merchandise exports for the fiscal year 2021 was estimated at US$14.73 billion, an increase of 1.8 per cent on the US$14.47 billion recorded in 2020.
As at end of December 2021, the total value of gold purchased by the Bank of Ghana(BoG) was US$24.65 million.
In the oil and gas sector, he said, a total revenue of US$666.39 million accrued to the State in the year 2020 from Royalties, Carried and Participating Interest (CAPI), Corporate Income Taxes (CIT) and Surface Rentals adding, that the petroleum sector total receipt of US$666.39 million in 2020 contributed seven percent of total government (domestic) revenue for that year.
MrRazak mentioned that a total of 3,711 employees were engaged in the upstream petroleum sector, 3,211 being Ghanaians and 500 expatriates as effort by the government to reduce the unemployment rate in the country.
For the year 2021, crude oil export receipts amounted to US$3.95 billion, compared to US$2.91 billion in 2020 due to higher realised prices, despite a decline in volume exported, and that average realised price of crude oil increased by 65.1 per cent to US$71.24 per barrel in 2021, compared to US$43.15 per barrel in 2020.
However, volume exported declined by 17.9 per cent year-on-year to about 55.50 million barrels in 2021, on account of a reduction in output from the Jubilee oil field.
As gas produced from the sector is supplied for domestic power generation in the country, MrRazak said in 2020, a total of 88,515.58 Million Standard Cubic Feet (MMscf) of Associated Gas and Non-Associated Gas produced from Jubilee, TEN and SGN fields were supplied to various thermal plants in Ghana for domestic power generation.
He said, so far a total of 580,034.37 MMSCF had been produced from 2014 to 2020, most of which had been utilised for domestic power generation in Ghana, some flared and others re-injected.
Dr. Steve Manteaw,co-chairman, GHEITI, observed that in spite of abundance of transparency, abuses continued in the mining and petroleum sectors.
He mentioned misappropriation, unaccounted for revenues, missing projects, shoddily executed projects, cost overruns arising from non consistent disbursement to projects from beginning to completion as some of the abuses.
Dr. Manteaw called for a provision of fund for public interest litigation and courtroom advocacy so that “citizens who are not happy with GHEITI reports could resort to the fund to get Ministers through mandamus to do what is required by law.”
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE,KUMASI
