The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) has urged the government to adequately resource the Ghana Geological Survey Authority (GGSA) to facilitate the mapping of the country’s mineral resources for effective utilization.
The GGSA, a government agency responsible for conducting geological surveys, mapping, and providing geoscientific information to both the public and private sectors, was established in 1913 and is headquartered in Accra, Ghana.
Dr. John Kwakye, Director of Research at IEA, emphasized in an interview with Bernard Avle on the Point of View on Citi TV on Monday that the government should allocate specific funds to the authority in its annual budgets to ensure the effective execution of GGSA’s mandate.
He stressed that this would prevent situations where foreign companies impose their conditions on the country simply because they offer similar services.
“Our geological survey, why can’t we resource them on an annual basis? I expect that the budget will have a line item that says that the Geological Survey takes so much. Let’s resource them so that they can do the mapping of the mineral data for us so that we don’t have to rely on a foreign company coming in and saying because I brought in my own capital, you have to accept these terms.”
“So we can find the money. In fact, we can even use part of our oil money, the funds that we have created the stabilisation fund, the heritage fund. We can dip into it and use it,” he stated.
