GHANA YET TO EXPLOIT MOST OF ITS MINERALS (PAGE 20)

THE Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mines Tarkwa (UMaT), Prof. D. Mireku-Gyimah, has stated that the mineral resources the country is endowed with are yet to be fully exploited
He said the country was potentially rich, since it was gifted with more natural resources than what were being extracted currently.
At the university’s first congregation at Tarkwa, Prof. Mireku-Gyimah said the country had witnessed the exploitation of gold, diamond, bauxite, manganese and, to some limited extent, salt, sand and gravel.
“But we also have iron, casseterite,  asbestos, limestone, marbles, andalusite, mica, talc, silica, garnet, felspar, sandstone, beryl columbite, lithium, monazite, copper, kaoline, as well as oil and gas which we are yet to tap to the country’s advantage,” he observed.
Prof. Gyimah-Boadi said the challenge at the moment was how to use correct mining and processing methods to exploit those minerals in an environmentally friendly manner to minimise environmental damage.
He said dealing with challenge would enable the country to derive maximum socio-economic benefits from the resources it was endowed with and still keep her environment intact.
Prof. Mireku-Gyimah said it was due to mining that a country like Ghana, with such a high level of natural resource deposits, was considered potentially rich.
Prof. Mireku-Gyimah said the university had only two academic faculties, namely Mineral Resources Technology and the Faculty of Engineering, with various departments under them.
The vice-chancellor said since everything the institution did concerned engineering, the current focus was to establish well-equipped laboratories, lecture halls and student hostels to enhance the study environment of the students.
He said the university would do everything possible to ensure that the dreams of a modern college of agricultural engineering and food processing technology or college of animal husbandry, or college of rubber and bamboo, paper production technology, became a reality in the near future.