Chamber of Mines Disputes Joe Jackson’s ‘Retention Ratio’, Warns Against Misguided Policy Conclusions
The Ghana Chamber of Mines has strongly challenged key claims made by Joe Jackson in his presentation, “Ananse Stories about the Economy of Ghana,” cautioning that flawed assumptions and data inconsistencies could lead to misleading conclusions about the mining sector’s role in exchange rate pressures. While commending Mr. Jackson for stimulating public debate on macroeconomic stability, the Chamber said aspects of his analysis—particularly the widely cited 46.2% “retention ratio”—are based on inconsistent comparisons that understate the sector’s true contribution to the domestic economy. According to the Chamber, the retention ratio was calculated using US$5.5 billion in in-country expenditure by large-scale mining firms against US$11.9 billion in total mineral export earnings. However, it argued that the export figure reflects the entire mining sector, including both large- and small-scale operators, while the expenditure figure captures only activities of its member companies. Th...