Shared prosperity, progress beyond the pandemic - Newmont Ghana’s contribution
NEWMONT Ghana said it is celebrating its 100th year in existence, at a time the world is recovering from a global pandemic that has redefined how we live and work in the past two years.
Nevertheless, the company’s centenary milestone presents it with an opportunity to take stock of what it were, what it has become, and what it hopes to be, as it drives its purpose of creating shared value and improving lives through sustainable and responsible mining.
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COVID-19 Global Community Support Fund As a sustainable and responsible mining company, Newmont responded to the crisis in Ghana with a heightened focus on health and safety as well as collective support in the national recovery efforts.
In the early days of the pandemic, the company developed and implemented a management plan intended to preserve the health and safety of our workforce and host communities.
Subsequently, Newmont established the COVID-19 Global Community Support Fund with $20 million to address three focus areas of workforce and community health, food security, and local economic resilience to support our operational jurisdictions.
To date, Newmont Ghana has spent over US$2million of its allocation to support COVID-19 management efforts towards employee and community health, food security and local economic resilience initiatives within and beyond host communities.
These include a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research in Tropical Medicine (KCCR) involving a total amount of GHc3.1m (US$545,000) under which the company would procure Polymerase Chase Reaction (PCR) equipment, ancillary equipment, reagents and other consumables to augment the capacity of KCCR to scale up its testing and the setting up of two PCR Labs in Kenyasi and New Abirem to boost their capacity in testing for infectious diseases.
The company also contributed over $550,000 to the Ghana Chamber of Mines’ $2 million donation to the nation’s COVID-19 management efforts.
Newmont also refurbished the Psychiatric Out Patient Department of the Pantang Hospital to support the management of mental health due to the impact of COVID-19.
Other beneficiary institutions include the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, Asutifi North District Assembly and Health Directorate, Birim North District Assembly and Health Directorate, Birim Central District Health service, Saint Elizabeth Hospital, Sunyani Regional Hospital and Tano District Assembly and Health Directorate.
Human development, economic contributions As at 2020 end of year, the company had paid US$313million in taxes, royalties, levies and carried interest to the government of Ghana.
Newmont supports nearly 51,000 jobs in Ghana as at 2018, which represents 0.42 per cent of the national labor force.
We have funded initiatives to improve the quality of education for young people in our host communities including: education enhancement clinics for B.E.C.E. candidates, in-service training for teachers, vacation classes for B.E.C.E. students and vocational training.
The company’s Apprenticeship and Learnership Training Programmes have trained 270 community youth trained in Ahafo and Akyem with 193 graduates employed by the company and contractors.
Community investments
The compamy’s vehicles for community investments and social impact are the community foundations established in the host communities – Newmont Ahafo Development Foundation (NADeF) and Newmont Akyem Development Foundation (NAkDeF).
As a catalyst for change, the company has contributed over US$21million to the Foundations to support identified needs and priorities of the host communities including infrastructure projects, scholarships and economic empowerment schemes.
It has established endowment funds of US$15M so far to support host communities after the life of the mines.
The company said as it looks to the future, it remains committed to delivering on its purpose to create value and improve lives, while staying true to its values of safety, integrity, sustainability, inclusion and responsibility.
