VICE President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
VICE President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has disclosed that government has begun the process of establishing an integrated aluminum industry through a joint venture agreement to enable Ghana develop key critical growth that will enhance physical infrastructure while adding value to the country’s mineral resources.
According to him, this forms part of government’s structural and transformational policies of putting value-addition to the nation’s agricultural commodities and mineral resources, which is central to the plans for growing the real sector of the Ghanaian economy.
Addressing participants at the 2018 National Policy Summit in Kumasi, the Vice President stated that relying on the exports of raw cocoa beans and unprocessed minerals had not been very beneficial in stimulating growth and job creation opportunities.
He noted: “Rather, that strategy has made our economies more and more vulnerable and dependent on the fluctuations in global commodity trends. Our periodic growth spurt when commodity prices are on the uptick is not the way to build a resilient economy, especially when that growth is not accompanied by job creation”.
The two-day summit, which was held under the theme: “Assessing the Growth, Jobs and Prosperity Agenda”, featured the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, and Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto on the first day.
Dr Bawumia continued “Ghana Beyond Aid requires government to build a resilient economy that provides opportunities for job creation. Government believes that adding value to the nation’s raw materials would yield substantial benefits. For example, Ghana has some of the richest bauxite deposits in the world. At a production rate of about 10 million metric tons of alumina annually, production could last well over 50 years”.
He added that this would potentially create one of the single largest alumina industries in Africa after Guinea, with a huge positive job impact.
“We are almost at the end of establishing a government holding company by the name Ghana Integrated Aluminum Development Authority (GIBADA). This holding company will be entrusted with all bauxite resources on behalf purposes,” Dr Bawumia stated.
He said guided by the benefits of diversification, government’s industrialization drive is not limited to the extractive sector. We have also launched ‘One-District, One-Factory’ and ‘One-District, One-Warehouse’ as policy initiatives to mark the new dawn of the Ghanaian indigenous business promotion aimed at adding value to our raw materials, creating jobs, and stimulating local level economies for the benefit of all citizens.
Information Minister, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, said the National Policy Summit (NPS) is a major flagship programme designed to bring together policymakers and business leaders to explore mutually beneficial ways of achieving the nation’s objectives.
He stated: “It is aimed at promoting social accountability in the public policy, mainstreaming development communication across the public sector, improving transparency and public access to communication, accountability and press freedom.”
According to the Information Minister, the two-day summit is a platform to explain government policies, plans and programmes as well as to outline objectives, scopes and specific areas where private capital is required to achieve set goals.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi