Africa-Press – Botswana. A lot could still be done to explore value chain opportunities for local manufacturers in the mining industry.
Similar to Ghana, there are a lot of opportunities to be explored locally to place Botswana as one of the hubs of the mine support services in the continent.
Ghana Chamber of Mines CEO, Mr Sulemanu Koney said this at the inaugural Local Manufacturing Summit themed Shaping the Future of Botswana’s Manufacturing Sector: The Road to Resiliency Through Innovation, Collaboration and Strategic Partnerships.
Mr Koney said drawing lessons from his country the Ghana chamber worked with it’s supply managers to organise fora and sensetise on opportunities in the mining sector.
“We conduct annual performance analysis and satellite accounting of the industry, which helps in measuring interrelations between mining and non-mining sectors of the economy.
We also commissioned a study on how to position Ghana as a hub for mining support services in West Africa,” he said.
Mr Koney said there were important linkages between mining industry and local manufacturers everywhere in the world.
He advised local manufacturers of the awareness of opportunities in value chain or ecosystem of the industry.
Ghana Chamber of Mines CEO urged stakeholders in the industry to enhance interest and desire among potential manufacturers by conducting basic research and analysis to assist them make investment decisions.
“As of interest and desire there should be compliance with minimum standards which are a prerequisite for a successful procurement in mining.
There should also be assurance to these manufacturers of a ready market,” he added.
Mr Koney also recommended inter-sectoral collaboration, which he said was vital between the mining industry, trade and industry sectors.
He advised that there should be coherence in fiscal policy such as tariffs for imports of critical goods and incentives for their local production.
The Ghanaian CEO said there should be an establishment of the National Supplies Development fund to improve linkages between mining industry and producers.
For his part, Morupule Coal mine (MCM) CEO, Mr Edwin Elias said through their Citizen Economic Empowerment Programme they had established a strategic focus area, which ensured citizens play a vital role in the supply chain process.
He said key success factors of the programme for local manufacturers was that they were beneficiaries in PPE manufacturing, oil and lubricant production and security as well as cleaning services among others.
Mr Elias said the programme was in line with the Economic Inclusion Act.
He said MCM had established strategic alliance with organisations such as BIUST for industrial attachment, internship programme and sponsored some people for further research in areas in line with their scope of operations.
He said MCM had a stream that was currently working on coal beneficiation among them coal to liquid convertion project with Botswana Oil. He said the whole idea was to convert coal into petroleum products.
Mr Elias said it was an expensive undertaking, but if done right, was capable of creating over 3 000 jobs.
He said the envisaged coal decarbonisation strategy would address many other coal beneficiation opportunities.
The two delegates were discussing manufacturing supply chain experiences in the mining sector and also looked at how the mining industry drove local manufacturing.
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