The Minerals Income and Investment Fund was set up to manage the equity interest of government in large scale mining and all mining royalties paid as well as their investment.

Speaking during a courtesy call on the Western Regional Minister in Sekondi as part of his one-week familiarization tour of mining companies and their stakeholders in the region, Edward Nana Koranteng said the MIIF is set to have $500 million asset in three-years time as part of its vision which also concerns the mining communities.

“MIIF’s intention really is to become the biggest minerals fund in Africa, and we are actually on the way to achieve that. We believe that in three years time, we should have about $500 million asset under management, but our impact will not be felt if it does not impact the people. It wouldn’t also be to any purpose if we do not see the main mining communities like Tarkwa being transformed.”

“I’m therefore here in the region to also identify some of the needs of the communities and to look at why some of the mining companies have challenges in paying royalties. We want to also see what help we can give to the non-gold players in the sector like the quarries where we have challenges with royalties payment“, he said.

Highlighting on some of the investments the Minerals Income and Investment Fund is considering, the Chief Executive indicated that MIIF will soon pump GH¢60 million into small scale mining.

“We intend to introduce what we call the Small Scale Mining Incubation Programme with the objective to see how we can help develop the small scale mining sector, turning it into mid-tier fully owned Ghanaian mining company which will impact the entire mining value chain to create jobs and transform the community. We are looking at how we can start the pilot scheme with about four mines and invest equity capital of about GHS60million in the form of machinery.”

“The conditions for them would be that they mine within the conditions set by the Minerals Commission. We wouldn’t expect them to pay back for these machines per se, but because it is an equity position, they will ramp up their production by 40%-100% and our returns will be the dividends that will come from their operations“, he added.

Mr. Koranteng noted that is a strategy to ensure that government increase revenues from the small scale gold mining sector, which contributes about 40% of Ghana’s current total gold production but pays little or no tax.

The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah, who encouraged the MIIF to support the Ghana Gold Expo which is annually held in Takoradi challenged the Chief Executive of the Mineral Income and Investment Fund to ensure that the exploitation of the extractive benefit locals by appropriate investments in the Region. Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah who repeated his usual vision for Tarkwa to be built into the likes of Johannesburg said he is on a mission to turn Takoradi into a financial hub to serve both the petroleum and the extractive sector.

“I have already had extensive interactions with the Finance Ministry and other people about making Sekondi-Takoradi the Financial Services hub of Ghana. This has gone into further discussions and I have been asked by the Finance Minister to nominate somebody to join the committee set up in Accra for the National Financial Services hub so we can look at how the two can be done because we have the resources and we think we can use that to leverage“, he said.

Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah – Minister, Western Region