The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources plans to introduce a policy to ensure that no bauxite leaves Ghana in its raw state.

The policy seeks to encourage exporters to process the mineral into alumina or alluminium before exporting it out of the country.

Nii Osae Mills, the Sector Minister, who announced this on Tuesday during his turn at the meet-the-press series in Accra, said the policy is part of the Ministry’s efforts to add value to the country’s natural resources.

He noted that minerals and metals are essential raw materials for industrialisation and also critical to the transformation of mining dependent economies.

“Indeed, when properly managed, mining has the potential to contribute significantly to sustainable development,” he said.

Nii Osae Mills said in 2014, the mining sector contributed 16 per cent of government revenue and in terms of total merchandise exports; the sector contributed 35 per cent in 2014.

“It is worthy of note that since 1991, the mining sector has been the single largest contributor to total merchandise export with gold accounting for 95 per cent of the mineral portfolio. In 2014, Ghana produced over 4.18 million ounces of gold, which resulted in export revenues of over 4.5 billion dollars,” he added.

On mining sub-sector achievements, the Minister said to mitigate the socio-economic impacts of mining on host communities, the Ministry implemented Alternative Livelihood Programmes (ALP) in mining communities through the creation of non-mining jobs.

He said the ALP aimed to generate employment, stem the tide of the rural urban migration, and reduce poverty as well as reducing the menace of illegal mining in those communities.

He said the project build the capacity of small scale miners to improve their efficiency, improve support to small scale mining, and undertake geological exploration in various parts of the country to identify mineralisation areas for small scale miners.

Nii Osae Mills said government regards small scale mining as a legitimate business with a great potential for poverty reduction, and it still remains the exclusive preserve of Ghanaians who hold licenses obtained from and signed by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.

He said foreigners by law are not allowed to engage in small scale mining in Ghana, and expressed the need to educate the mining communities not to connive with them but rather expose them to the authorities.

The Minister also enumerated significant achievements in the forestry and the lands sub sectors.