Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey, has expressed concern over what he describes as the decline in Ghana’s large-scale mining sector, warning that the trend could undermine the country’s future gold production.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Monday, August 17, he said Ghana must take steps to grow the large-scale mining sector to sustain gold production in the long term.

According to him, the concern is not necessarily that artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) has overtaken large-scale mining in gold production, but that production from the large-scale sector is declining.

Ing. Ashigbey said the decline is particularly worrying because large-scale mining plays an important role in exploration, which is necessary to identify new gold deposits and sustain production.

He noted that Ghana’s ability to maintain its position as Africa’s leading gold producer would depend on efforts to reverse the decline in large-scale mining and increase investment in exploration.

He said the current trends do not point to the growth needed to sustain the sector.

“The worry is more for the fact that the large-scale sector has declined. And then also the fact that the things, the leading factors that would lead you to growth, are not pointing in the right direction,” he said.

Ing. Ashigbey further argued that strengthening the large-scale sector would also support more responsible mining and provide sustainable employment.