Ghana’s Ambassador to China assures: GIADEC will ensure utmost gains from Bauxite mining

Edward Boateng, Ghana’s Ambassador to China, has assured that due process is being followed by the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation, GIADEC, to ensure that Ghana benefits sufficiently from the expected bauxite mining.

Government’s plan to mine bauxite in the Atewa Forest Reserve, a $2 billion Sinohydro deal with China, has received a lot of backwash with environmental groups propelling against the deal due to the expected impact of bauxite mining, especially in the Atewa Forest.

Seven Civil Society Organisations and some private citizens have gone ahead to sue the government over the plans to mine in the Atewa Forest.

On the occasion to mark 60 years of bilateral relations between Ghana and China, Mr Edward Boateng confuted opinion that Chinese companies where being favoured when it comes to the mining of Ghana’s bauxite.

The Government has been very keen to explain that bauxite mining would be done responsibly, and will not cause damage to the Atewa Forest or the environment.

“It is important to state that Ghana’s bauxite was never given to the Chinese. GIADEC is going through its processes, and companies from all over the world have tendered and are tendering. And some of the companies are indeed Chinese. But the whole idea on the bauxite was that we were going to develop the bauxite on our terms and use the revenue from the bauxite to pay for the needed infrastructure project.”

“When the Sinohydro deal was done, the company expressed no interest in the bauxite but were willing to work with us as long as we could guarantee that they would be paid back from the proceeds from any bauxite we sold. And the bauxite in question could be mined by any company from anywhere in the world.”