The Minority in Parliament has predicted the loss of about one million jobs following the government’s introduction of the Minerals and Mining Royalty Regulations, 2025.
The Legislative Instrument, which matured into law on Tuesday, March 10, 2026, establishes a sliding-scale framework that allows royalty rates to be adjusted in response to fluctuations in international market prices, enabling the state to earn more during periods of high commodity prices.
Addressing journalists on Tuesday, the Chairman of the Subsidiary Legislation Committee, Patrick Boamah said the new regulation could make Ghana’s mining sector unattractive to investors.
“If you introduce this sliding scale, yes, you may accrue some revenue but the net effect will be some job losses that I will be sharing with you in the report that I will be giving to you. About a million job losses,” he stated.
He added: “If you lose close to a million jobs because the investment required did not come in, you are not going to get the employee’s tax, tax from companies and what have you, job losses, you are not going to expand.”
The Okaikwei Central MP insisted that the new agreement will hurt the mining sector.
“…all it says is that when it happens like that, we are not being attractive to the investor that is required to come to the mining sector, so this is going to hurt the mining sector,” he noted.
He called on government to fulfill its promise to reduce the growth and stabilization levy to 1% to cushion mining companies.
“At the committee, we invited the finance minister who promised the mining community that they were going to reduce the growth and stabilization levy to 1% to cushion them. As we speak, that has not happened.”
The lawmaker stressed that government must make the mining sector attractive to enable local mining companies take over major mining assets nearing expiration which are currently being controlled by international companies.
“It tells you that government has not being honest with the mining community. I believe that Government has to take the mining sector seriously, especially when government wants to encourage the locals to takeover some of the major mining assess that will be expiring at the end of the year,” he explained.
