Ghana: "High Levels of Offshore Retention, low Levels of Royalty Rates Hinder Africa"

Mr.Abdulai Darimani, programme officer in the Environment Unit at TWN-Africa, has said that one of the reasons why money from mining has, contrary to popular belief, no benefit for domestic revenue is because companies are allowed by policy to retain as much as 40-90 per cent of their earnings in offshore accounts. Speaking as a panellist on an Accra-based private radio station CITI 97.3FM’s "Business Digest" programme, he argued that there are "high levels of offshore retention and low levels of royalty rates permitted by many national mining policies in Africa", adding that "Ghana’s shift to a HIPC status from a position of praise on its liberal mining policy best illustrates that the country does not benefit in any significant way from mining."