The Union is also pushing that half of the 50 per cent allocation to the MDF must directly go into mining community development.

Speaking at its National Executive Council Meeting in Accra, the General Secretary of the Union, Mr Abdul-Moomin Gbana, said the current sharing model of the MDF was lopsided.

“According to the 2020 report by the Chamber of Mines, producing mining companies paid a total of GH?1.4 billion in mineral royalties to the GRA. Out of this amount, only 20 per cent (GH?278 million) of the above mineral royalties is expected to go to the MDF.

“The MDF also gave 20 per cent (GH?56 million) of its share of the royalties to the Mining Community Development Scheme (MCDS) set up under it for mining community development,” he noted.

He said the rest of the MDF share of royalty funds goes to other institutions including the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

In essence, he said the government made only one per cent of the mineral revenue in 2020 available under its current arrangement for the development of the numerous communities affected by mining operations.

Earmarked funds capping

Mr Gbana said to make matters worse, the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and by extension the Ministry of Finance had not only consistently delayed the release of the MDF contribution but also reduced the quantum because of the application of the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act 2017 (Act 947).

“For instance, in 2020, a little above half of their paltry share of mineral revenue was released which further reduced the MCDS’ quantum which clearly undermines the whole idea of community development.

“After over 100 years of mining in Ghana, with almost nothing to show for in mining communities by way of development, the Ghana Mineworkers’ Union is of the firm conviction that the Mineral Development Fund unlike all the other earmarked funds under Act 947 ought to be exempted from the scope of the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act 2017 (Act 947) and stringent measures put in place to ensure that the appropriate share is timely disbursed for the intended use if indeed, we are committed to changing this narrative,” he stated.

He said with this lopsided sharing model of the country’s mineral royalties, there was no gainsaying that the infrastructural development efforts of mining communities could never be achieved if nothing drastic is done about the current sharing model.

“In the coming weeks therefore, we will be working with some identified groups, traditional leaders, and other like-minded individuals to change this unfortunate narrative,” he said.

Review of Labour Act

Mr Gbana also called for a review of the Labour Act 2003, (Act 651) to fix what he described as implementation gaps identified over the years.

He said law must be amended to make it responsive to the changing needs of the actors in the industrial relations space.

“The Union is therefore calling on the National Tripartite Committee through Organized Labour led by the TUC to prioritize the labour law review without further delay,” he stated.

Mr Gbana pointed out that one of the loopholes on the law was found in Section 66 (a) which grants exemptions to employers from paying redundancy/severance to workers engaged in contracts of a specified duration or for specific work.

“Given this lacuna, and in our view the greatest injustice ever perpetuated against workers, employers have capitalized on this and are engaging workers for all kinds of jobs under cutting throat precarious arrangement all in the bid to escape severance payment,” he noted.