Abstract:
The Ghanaian mining industry went through various stages of development prior to
the World Bank’s negative assessment in the mid-1980s. This blamed the state ownership
model, characterized by lack of adequate capitalization, obsolete technologies
(Agbesinyale, 2008) and mismanagement, among other factors, for the decline in the
sector. The Bank then recommended far reaching reforms in the mining sector within
the context of the neoliberal structural adjustment programme. In the late 1980s, the
industry began to recover due to the inception of the World Bank/IMF-led Mineral
Sector Reform and the World Bank/IMF conditionality of the privatization of stateowned
enterprises. The reform led to the Minerals and Mining Act of 1986 which
provided incentives to investors in the sector. This law has been revised and the
Minerals and Mining Act 2006 implemented. Since the World Bank/IMF structural
adjustment programme which was implemented in Ghana from 1983, there has been
massive involvement byWestern multinational companies (MNCs).With the country’s
huge gold reserves estimated at 1600 tones and resources amounting to 2550 tones,
with total gold production expected to increase to over 100,000 kg per annum by 2018
(Austrade, 2007), multinational gold mining companies are likely to continue to invest
in Ghana
