Golden Star Wassa Limited has revealed that the burning of its company properties by illegal miners last week will impact its contribution to government’s gold-for-oil arrangement.
“If you understand our production cycle, Benso contribute about a third of our total production. So with Benso not producing or bringing in any ore for about a month or two, that impacts greatly on our total production for that period,” the Group Corporate Affairs Manager for Golden Star Wassa Limited, Gerard Boakye said in an interview with JoyNews.
“The most important one that may be impacted is the government’s gold-for-oil programme. Every company is supposed to contribute 20% of its annual production to be bought by government, part of which is used for the gold-for-oil program.
“Now if this production has gone down, obviously our contribution to this program is going to be impacted through no faults of ours,” he said.
He explained that aside from the gold for oil policy, there are other benefits to the state that will be heavily impacted by the disturbance.
“And there are so many things that may be impacted. We may be paying some people without doing any work, or people will be home without work, and contractors that we have signed contracts with would have to be kept on a retainer.
“And if you look at the value chain of our operation, it is just gold, but there are other statutory payments to MinCom, GRA and govt that will be affected by the reduced production,” he explained.
Mr Gerard Boakye called for greater security support from the state to protect mining companies for their strategic roles in the economy of Ghana.
“So it’s important companies that support the national economic policy of the country, it is important that there ways that we enjoy some sort of protection or support so that our operations will not be impacted by some of these actions.
“I keep saying that we used to enjoy at our cost, military police support; ‘Operation Calm Life’, I see no reason why this cannot be formalised again, he stated.
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