Eleven post-graduate students and lecturers of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) have received GH¢784,438 grants to undertake research into key challenges of the mining industry.

The research grant which is the second-cohort of the Chamber of Mines Tertiary Education Fund will include research into areas like New Hybrid Technique for Drilling and Blasting for Stable Walls of Open-Pit-Mines, Development of Environmentally Friendly and Sustainable Small Scale Gold Mining Methods and Model for Ghana, Intelligent Agriculture for Alternative Livelihood in Mining Communities among others.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Sulemana Konney told Citi News during the presentation of the grants at UMaT in Tarkwa that this year’s grant of GH¢784,438 and together with the the cohort-1 research grant brings it to a total of over GH¢1.3 million research investment.

He said as much as the Chamber is supporting academia to carry out research, the Ghanaian mining sector would be the greatest beneficiary in terms of productivity.

“To be competitive is the key focus and productivity is the watch word. If we don’t support the University of Mines and Technology, then we are shooting ourselves in the foot…So it is in our interest as an industry to ensure research into productivity is top-notch. And the best way to do it is to look at what you can do to enhance productivity through human capital development. In fact, the most sustainable way of competitive advantage would come from human capital development.”

”We know that as a Chamber we are supporting the UMaT which we call it our university, but at the same time we also know that this would inure to our benefit“, he said.

While optimistic about Ghana’s mining industry increasing its productivity following the Chamber’s investment of GH¢1.3 million in research into key challenging areas confronting the Ghanaian mining industry, Sulemana Konney challenged the research-grant beneficiaries to live up to expectations.

“The entire mining industry is awaiting the outcome of your research work and expecting you to come up with
solutions to some of the challenges confronting the industry. You have the support of the Chamber, and we assure you to facilitate access to the host mining companies you have chosen to work in just as we did for your predecessors”, he noted.

One of the researchers, Prof. William K. Boah from the Mining and Mineral Technology Faculty of UMaT spoke to Citi News about his research funded by the Chamber of Mines.

“I was to design a novel reactor for plant site preparation of waste activated carbon so that gold that is locked up in the waste activated carbon can be recovered on the plant. The reactor has been designed and some initial test work has been done, and we need to now firm up the results. So we need to continue doing some tea work on the reactor, so we can enhance the reliability of the results.”

”As I’m speaking now, since I submitted my report in June, I have been working on the project to make sure that it is up to the point it can be implemented in the industry“, he said.

The Vice Chancellor of UMaT, Prof. Richard Kwasi Amankwah on his part noted the immeasurable impact of the overall Chamber of Mines’ funding to the mining university in areas of state-of-the-art laboratories, lecture halls, logistics and research.