Maybel Acquaye, a Senior Policy Analyst and Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager at the Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP), Accra, has called for a decisive policy shift to unlock the vast but neglected potential of Ghana’s industrial minerals subsector.
She argued that Ghana’s mining governance has historically prioritised gold at the expense of industrial minerals such as quarry aggregates, limestone, granite, clay and salt, despite their critical role in infrastructure and industrial development.
She was speaking at a media capacity-building session last Friday held under the theme ‘Investment opportunities in the industrial minerals subsector in Ghana.’
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According to Mabel Acquaye, studies by ACEP indicate that Ghana could earn up to 18 times more revenue from the quarry subsector alone if regulatory oversight and fiscal monitoring were improved.
Industrial minerals
“Industrial minerals have very high domestic consumption rates, yet the revenues Ghana earns from them remain extremely low. This shows a clear mismatch between their economic importance and the policy attention they receive,” she stated.
She noted that aggregates used for roads, bridges, housing, marine construction and other infrastructure projects are extracted across almost every region of the country.
“Trucks carry huge volumes of aggregates across the length and breadth of Ghana every day, but the key question is how much value the state derives from this activity,” Acquaye added.
The ACEP analyst explained that although Ghana’s Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) governs all minerals, the absence of a dedicated industrial minerals policy has left the subsector largely overlooked.
“We are not advocating for a new mining law. What is needed is a policy framework that deliberately focuses on industrial minerals and reflects their developmental importance,” she clarified.
She pointed out that several African countries, including Uganda, Zambia and Cameroon, have adopted targeted mining policies that explicitly prioritise industrial or development minerals.
Maybel Acquaye stressed that industrial minerals offer Ghana a stronger pathway to local beneficiation and value addition, compared to precious minerals that are mostly exported in raw form.
“Once industrial minerals are processed locally, the value increases significantly, and so does their contribution to GDP, job creation and local revenues,” she explained.
She noted that revenues from industrial minerals tend to be more stable, as they are less exposed to international price volatility and are largely driven by domestic demand.
The ACEP analyst emphasized that industrial minerals underpin Ghana’s urbanisation, infrastructure expansion and industrialisation agenda, supplying critical inputs for the power, transport, construction and manufacturing sectors.
“If we deepen our focus on industrial minerals, the entire value chain, from extraction to processing, can be localized, delivering greater socio-economic benefits to communities and the state,” she said.
She urged policymakers to treat industrial minerals as a strategic development resource, rather than a secondary component of the mining sector.