Mining companies should take advantage of the gold price boom
to invest in infrastructure and exploration, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, the General
Secretary of the Ghana Mine Workers’ Union (GMWU), of the Trades Union
Congress, has suggested.
“Given the unprecedented surge in gold
price and the colossal gains most mining companies made last year, and what
they are projecting to make this year, we expect that mining companies would
take strategic advantage of the price boom and by extension increased margins
from last year and this year, to invest in modern infrastructure and expand
existing ones, increase production, intensify exploration activities,” he
said the at the Union’s National Executive Council Meeting held at Abirem in
the Eastern Region.
That, he said, the Ghana Mine Workers’
Union believed was a substantial step towards the creation of decent and
sustainable jobs and a strategic approach to sustaining the industry in the
long run.
He said unlike other sectors which had
been heavily hit since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Ghanaian mining
industry so far stood out as the utmost beneficiary of the global health
crisis.
Mr Gbana said gold price since the
beginning of the year had maintained relative stability at a little over $1800
per ounce.
“Indeed, the World Gold Council has
posited that “Gold has been on a generally positive trend for the past few
years”. The onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic has made gold’s
relevance as a hedge even more apparent and accelerated its price performance,”
the General Secretary of GWMU, said.
Mr Gbana said another issue of grave
concern was the gradual decline in the decent work gains achieved over the
years, in pursuit of super normal profit that continued to undermine the
working conditions of mining workers.
He said a study conducted by the Ghana
Mineworkers’ Union revealed that for every increase in non-standard forms of
employment, there was a corresponding decrease in standard employment or
permanent employment in the sector.
“Without a doubt, this trend is fast
undermining the decent work agenda and slipping our members into working
poverty and ought to be checked without any further delay,” he said.
The General Secretary of GMWU said
even though multinational mining conglomerates operating in the country had
signed onto international conventions and protocols pledging to respect and
promote workers’ rights, they were doing the opposite.
He said the some loopholes in the
Labour Act 2003, (Act 651) which granted exemptions to employers from paying
redundancy and severance to workers engaged in contract of a specified duration
or for specific work, were contributing to the precarious work situation for
mining sector workers.
Mr Gbana observed that the resort to
contract mining by mining companies was worsening the working conditions of
mine sector workers and called an end to such practice.
The National Chairman of GMWU, Mensah
KwarkoGyakari, in his remarks, called to an end the current practice in which
some chiefs had turned themselves into recruitment agencies for mining
companies found in their communities.
Source: Ghanaian Times