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Govt Seeks Investor For Diamond Company |
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The government is still searching for a strategic investor to take over the Ghana Consolidated Diamonds Company (GCDL) after the company has been on the divestiture list for more than 15 years. |
A few investors have, however, been shortlisted by the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) and it is expected that one of them will be found capable of running the mine.
The Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Mrs Esther Obeng Dapaah, made this known in Accra when her ministry took its turn at the “Meet-the-Press” series yesterday.
The GCDL had been a key contributor to the country’s economy, but over the past 15 years the government has found it difficult to get a strategic investor to revive the once vibrant mining company.
Mrs Dapaah identified the search for an investor for the company as one of the major challenges facing her ministry.
She said the government was considering the registration of un-licensed diamond operators in order to ensure that they complied fully with the principles of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which came into operation in 2003, imposes extensive requirements on countries to certify the conflict-free origin of all exports of rough diamonds and put in place rigorous domestic controls over diamond production and trade to prevent conflict diamonds from entering the diamond pipeline.
Mrs Dapaah said the government also intended to undertake limited exploration over areas identified to be suitable for small-scale mining and encourage galamsey operators to acquire those areas for legal mining.
She mentioned the enactment of the Mineral and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) to address the interests of stakeholders as one of the major achievements of the government in the mining sub-sector.
Another achievement, she noted, was the investment of $4.9 billion in the sector since 2001, “resulting in a substantial increase in the minerals — gold, diamond, bauxite and manganese — produced over the period”.
Mrs Dapaah said the strategy to promote value addition to the country’s minerals had yielded positive results, citing the expansion of the jewellery operations of the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) and the cutting and polishing of diamonds in the country by an American company.
On the land sub-sector, the minister enumerated a number of interventions by the NPP administration since it took office in 2001 to streamline policies and the legislative framework.
She said an efficient and cost-effective one-stop corporate organisation had been established to handle land management issues in order to reduce the time and cost of land registration and titling.
“To make land transactions easier, a bill to establish a new Lands Commission, with all land agencies under it, is currently before Parliament for consideration. Consequently, negotiations for the construction of a new office building for the new Land Agency has been completed,” she noted.
Mrs Dapaah said in order to reduce security in land tenure and avoid multiple sale of land, 10 customary land secretariats — one in each region — had been established, while land banks for investment in various parts of the country had also been identified, documented and published to provide ready access to land.
She observed that the success of land administration in the country depended largely on an effective administrative set-up at the local level, for which reason the ministry had decided to conduct a study to find out how effective and sustainable the management of CLS could be.
With respect to the forest and wildlife sub-sector, Mrs Dapaah said the ministry was implementing a Validation of Legal Timber Scheme to monitor logging and wood processing activities.
The essence, she said, was to ensure that only legal timber entered the European Union through a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) with Ghana.
“This process will prevent illegal logging and loss of revenue to government, control wastage and prevent the over-exploitation of timber resources,” she said.
Mrs Dapaah announced that Cabinet had approved a benefit-sharing scheme for parties involved in the modified Taungya system in the proportion of 40 per cent for farmers, 40 per cent for the Forestry Commission, 15 per cent for landowners and five per cent for the local community.
The modified Taungya system of plantation development has temporarily made available fertile and productive agricultural lands within degraded forest reserves to farmers to boost food production.
In 2006, those areas yielded 23,000 metric tonnes of maize and 850,000 metric tonnes of plantain.
The minister further indicated that the Attorney-General was considering for approval a reviewed benefit-sharing scheme for parties involved in commercial plantation development.
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