On Wednesday, 31st January 2024, Friends of the Nation (FoN) in collaboration with Oxfam and Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Assembly organized a Multi-Stakeholder Workshop for five (5) Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies(MMDAs) to share Best Practices in the Utilization of Mineral Revenue at the district level with the citizenry. The meeting also considered the challenges, proposals and recommendations for effective Mineral Revenue Management for the review of the Mineral Development Act 2016, Act 912 of Ghana.
The event brought together stakeholders from the Mining Communities such as Nananom (Traditional Authorities), Youth groups, Women groups, executives of the Ghana Federation of the Disabled as well as members of the Local Management Committee of the Mineral Development Fund of the various Assemblies. The MMDAs which included Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, Prestea Huni Valley Municipal Assembly, Wassa East Municipal Assembly, Amanfi East and Ellembelle District Assembly, all in the Western Region were represented by Planning Officers, Budget Analysts and Assembly Members.
Speaking at the event, the Municipal Coordinating Director for the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, Mr. Boffour Ahmed Haruna welcomed all participants to the municipality, expressing delight at being the host for such an important event.
Also speaking at the event was the Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator for Friends of the Nation, Nana Efua Ewur, who presented the Safeguard Policy of the organization. She explained that the policy seeks to protect all vulnerable groups that come into contact with the organization’s work from sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of power, among others. In the course of her presentation, she highlighted the various actions that are tantamount to harassment or abuse, as well as pointing out the various channels for reporting such issues.
The apex of the workshop involved presentations by Planning Officers from each of the MMMDAs on the utilization of their Mineral Revenue, the practices they employ in their utilization as well as the opportunities and challenges involved.
Discussions and deliberations were held after each presentation to identify the best practices as well as address any associated challenges. Some of the challenges identified included:
- a lack of clarity on the criteria for disbursement of mineral revenue
- unclear definition of mining communities for the application of the Mineral Development Fund (MDF)
- Over-concentration on physical and infrastructure projects to the neglect of local economic development activities etc.
To this effect a number of recommendations were made to address these issues. These included:
- providing clear policy guidelines for the utilization of Mineral Revenues
- providing clear definition for a mining community for the application of the MDF
- increasing the percentage of mineral revenue that comes to the mining communities
- lessening the focus on physical projects and infrastructure to create a balance with Local Economic Development and
- developing internal capacity for forecasting mineral revenues.
Members were of the greatest conviction that, these recommendations if implemented by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources could help improve the utilization and management of the mineral resources.
