The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Minerals Commission (Mincom), Mr. Martin Ayisi has highlighted the various skill sets and training requirements which have high potentials for easy job opportunities in the mining sector.
The Mincom boss has embarked on vigorous radio and television engagements to educate the general public on various job opportunities in the mining sector available for the ordinary Ghanaian vis-à-vis the ‘Local Content and Local Participation Regulations 2020’.
Speaking in an interview on Asempa FM’s flagship program called Ekosii Sen in one of such engagements, Mr. Ayisi stated that “one key area that as a nation we tend to overlook is the Technical Skills requirement especially with the various engineering departments as far as mining is concerned”.
He said, the main engineering fields which anchors mining in all forms and are in high demand lately due to expansion in the sector includes Chemical Engineering, Mineral Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering as well as Geological Engineering.
The CEO mentioned that “at first, people use to ridicule mechanical engineering course as ‘advance fitter’ or ‘book mu fitter’ until I entered the mining sector some twenty years ago to realized that it is a very serious programme with huge potentials for employment”.
Mr. Ayisi added saying; “an area that I will advise parents to watch carefully and to guide their wards in that direction in the mining industry are the various key engineering areas I mentioned above because of the value addition and the refineries that are coming up”.
He indicated that all things being equal Ghana Manganese will start a $450m refinery this year to refine manganese after over 108 years of exporting it in the raw state and this will further create additional 360 jobs.
“This is a country where we can boast and say that our engineers or those who work in the mining sector are some of the best in the world and not just Africa alone. Any Expat mining company that comes to Africa when they are looking for Africans to hire, they first come to Ghana, so you will find Ghanaians in DRC, Guinea and all over the place”, he stated.
The CEO also indicated that there is a new programme UMAT has introduced called Health and Safety Engineering which is also catching up now. These are the various engineering programs that are in demand and the good thing is that you don’t necessarily have to do them at the Universities only, you can also take these courses at the Polytechnics or what is now known as the Technical Universities.
