Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the flagbearer and leader of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), has announced his intentions of establishing a Minerals Development Bank.

According to Dr. Bawumia, the minerals bank will be established when he is elected President in the upcoming December Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

Vice President Bawumia mentioned that the initiative is a Bawumia-led governmental project that is aimed at providing financial support for mining projects in the country. 

Dr. Bawumia made his intention known to patrons who graced the 3rd Annual Transformational Dialogue on Small Scale Mining in Ghana at the University of Energy and Natural Resources in the Bono Region.

Dr. Bawumia underscored the need to establish a Minerals bank, noting that, it will prevent the practice of foreign mining companies exporting all their earnings.

Dr. Bawumia said, “We also want to, as I said, in collaboration with the relevant state institutions like MIIF, PMMC, the Bank of Ghana, the private sector and others, we want to establish a minerals development bank to finance viable local mineral projects and to mitigate foreign financing of local mining projects, which leads to heavy smuggling of the produce afterwards.”

The Vice President Dr. Bawumia noted that, Ghana loses so much financial resources to the foreign mining companies because the country does not have the requisite logistics to process all the minerals we have in Ghana.

According to Dr. Bawumia, the establishment of the minerals bank will help to create more local based mining companies that will compete with the other international mining companies across the globe.