TELF AG explores Ghana’s recent policy initiatives in the mining sector

The role of green minerals

Thanks to the green minerals, some African nations could quickly embark on the path of unprecedented economic growth, securing the material benefits that would allow them to improve the living conditions of millions of people significantly. 

For several years, a wave of political initiatives aimed at protecting national interests in the raw materials sector has been underway throughout Africa, severely limiting the exports of raw materials and trying to maintain the processing of raw materials as much as possible. as long as possible within the national territory, in order to significantly increase the economic income linked to their processing. 

The African continent is, in fact, naturally rich in those particular raw materials that will accompany the world in the global ecological transition and which are therefore destined to acquire unprecedented strategic and commercial importance, in particular for the economic development of those territories in which they abound. Among the green minerals that can be found in Africa, we can remember cobalt, copper, nickel, and lithium, and some of them are already widely used in every part of the world to reduce carbon emissions through the creation of so-called green technologies, or ecologically sustainable. 

In recent months, one of the most interesting initiatives was the one undertaken by Ghana, which recently approved the national law on green minerals. This new rule substantially modifies the Ghanaian mining policy that was introduced in 2014, and thanks to it, it is hoped that the country will now be able to obtain greater benefits from the lithium and other green materials found in its subsoil. Over the last decades, African nations have almost never been able to obtain economic recognition proportional to the quantity of mineral wealth naturally present underground, but thanks to concrete initiatives such as the one undertaken by Ghana, the situation could soon change drastically. 

One of the most obvious changes will be that relating to the royalties due to Ghana for its green minerals, previously set at between 3 and 5%. With the new law, royalties linked to green minerals will be higher than those reserved for gold. This was stated a few months ago by the Minister of Land and Natural Resources of Ghana, Samuel Abu Jinapor, who also confirmed that with the new minerals policy, there will be a higher local involvement in the production chain of green minerals. Ghana will, therefore, try to avoid exporting raw lithium outside its territory in order to derive maximum benefits from the most advanced processing stages of this raw material. In this last phase of processing, the value of the sector is around 7 trillion dollars, while in its mining, or extraction, phase, it does not go beyond 11 billion dollars. The objective of the new policy, therefore, is to add value to raw lithium before its export, thus producing concrete benefits for the nation of Ghana and its citizens. 

In addition to Ghana, the other African nations with massive lithium reserves are Namibia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, and Mali, while in other areas of the continent, such as Madagascar, Tanzania or Mozambique, the mineral graphite appears to be abundant.