As a result the suppliers were able to employ 93 new persons and paid salaries estimated at GHc400,000.   The financial resources accessed by the businesses also amounted to GHc650,000 with the suppliers accessing 57 new clients apart from Newmont through a market diversification drive.

Mr. Dan Michaelsen, General Manager, Environment and Social Responsibility of the mine who made this known in Sunyani, said the total sales generated by the local suppliers as at December last year stood at GHc30 million. He was speaking at the close-out session of the Ahafo Linkages Programme (ALP), an initiative of the mining company in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation.

The aim of the two-year programme is to develop local businesses and build their capacities to offer services to the NGGL and other companies outside the Ahafo mine.  Mr. Michaelsen said the suppliers made GHc20 million sales from Newmont’s contracts in addition to GHc9 million from their other clients.

 Touching on some of the results of the ALP by way of local economic development, Mr. Michaelsen said last year 44 businesses also received technical assistance and developed records keeping in cashbook, expenditure analysis, credit sales and purchase, payroll, bank operation and raw material inventory.

 He said the total sales that were generated by the 44 business stood at GHc2 million, creating 94 new jobs in the process, adding that the 44 local non-mining businesses accessed 1.4 million dollars as credit from financial institutions. He said 246 individuals including 67 females benefited from short term technical assistance training programmes including good agricultural practices in vegetable and fruit production, upgrading of skills in pottery and bricks production as well as good husbandry practices in eggs production.

 Mr. Michaelsen gave the assurance that the mining company would continue to work hard to improve the local environment for business development.
GNA

Otumfuo Osei Tutu said this after he had toured the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Cocoa processing factory at Kaasi in Kumasi on Thursday. ADM is a Free Zone company, which processes cocoa beans into liquor for export. It started operations in the country in 2009.  Otumfuo Osei Tutu II commended the company for adding value to Ghana’s cocoa and helping to enhance the image of the country.  He said the establishment of the state-of-the-art facility in Kumasi, attested to the company’s determination to build enduring relationship with the people and called on other companies to learn from its example.

Mr Mouhamadou Kane, ADM General Manager, West Africa, said since its establishment, the company had taken steps to build strong relationships with the community.  He said they have been supporting the work of the National Catholic Health Service, built a sanitary facility at Kaase and collaborated with German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) to provide medical services to prevent and treat HIV, Tuberculosis, malaria and other infectious diseases in the area.

He said the operation of the Kumasi plant was important to the company’s efforts at becoming the preferred global supplier of cocoa and chocolate solutions.  He said it had strengthened their ability to source high quality cocoa beans from Ghana and provided its customers access to quality chocolate ingredients.

GNA

Professor John Powell, the research scientist, said such a move would help entrepreneurs to avail themselves of modern technologies.
He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the International Development Design Summit (IDDS) being hosted by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.

The three-week summit will enable the participants including physicists, economists, mechanics, welders, engineers, farmers, lawyers and students collaborate and share information on technology transfers and also delve more deeply into research areas of common interests.
The IDDS aims at creating a global community of innovators committed to improving the lives of people living in poverty through workshops and seminars where participants from all over the world brainstorm on technology transfers.

Participants are taught models of innovations and developments while experiencing them through the design process as they create solutions to the design challenges that are presented at the beginning of the summit.

Professor Powell stressed the need for entrepreneurs and industrialists to be abreast with the dynamism and challenges facing small-scale entrepreneurs and be ready to embrace new technologies.  Professor William Ellis, Pro-Vice Chancellor of KNUST assured the participants of the University’s support for the Summit, stressing that his outfit intended to adopt technology transfers that would be arrived at for onward transfer to the university’s academic work.

Mineral-rich African states have been deprived of huge sums of royalties and taxes by mining firms, a report says.

The report, by prominent development charities, blames a lack of legislative oversight and excessively generous tax concessions agreed with the firms.

It says some mining companies have also avoided paying tax through secret contracts with African governments.

Even in the boom times, African nations failed to profit as much as they should have done from natural resources thanks to inadequate tax rules and lack of ability to enforce the rules that did apply, the report says.

Ghana, a top African gold producer, is losing $68m (£46.7m) annually because it is receiving low royalties, the report’s authors estimate.

They believe Tanzania, the continent’s third largest producer of gold, could be losing $30m (£20.6m) a year in potential revenues.

The study covers South Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

Commissioned by development charities including Christian Aid and ActionAid, the Breaking the Curse report calls for reform of the institutional framework that negotiates mining concessions and monitors the royalties paid.

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