Starting a business in Ghana comes with a few tricks… - Dr Bright Oppong Afum

Host: Dr. Afum, can you tell me more about how you got into mining engineering in Ghana and how you ended up in Canada?

Dr. Bright Oppong Afum: Thank you very much. Always nice to be on your platform. So I'm a mining engineer, as you rightly said. I started my education in Accra, the capital city of Ghana, at a school near the sea. After junior high school, I went to senior secondary school in Obuasi, where I studied agriculture science.

Somebody mentioned engineering, and I got interested. Initially, I wanted to be a veterinary officer, but then I became interested in becoming an engineer. The challenge was that you needed elective mathematics, which I hadn't studied. So after completing school in August, I stayed behind with one of my mentors, Mr. Tetteh, who was a teacher. I learned the mathematics on my own for two and a half months, wrote the exams, and got a good pass.

I was able to choose chemical engineering first at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, but I didn't meet the cutoff grade. They gave me my second choice - mining engineering. That's how I ended up with mining engineering at Tarkwa. Those days, the university in Tarkwa was a college under the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. We were actually the last batch of that college until the university became fully fledged.

I enjoyed the mining program very much and had an opportunity to work with an explosives company. They've changed their names from African Explosives Limited to a mining services company - now they are AECI. That's where I learned a lot about explosives and blasting technology. Because we did total solution blasting, I was curious about how we could pump explosives into upholes underground. My curiosity led me to change to underground mining just to observe that process.

My first time visiting underground was at the charging front in production. The first question I asked was: "How do you get explosive up there without it dropping?" After getting my answers, I was excited.

After underground work with Kinross at a mine in Ghana, I was also curious about the environment. I took a study leave from the company to go to Wales to study environmental monitoring and analysis - essentially inorganic environmental geochemistry. It was a fantastic practical program. We even had a five-day tour of silver mines in Ireland.

After that, I came back to the mines and realized I was being underutilized. I retired from the mining company to the university to become a lecturer. While at the university, I had the opportunity to do my PhD in mining optimization studies at Laurentian University in Canada. That's how I ended up in Canada. Currently, my family is based in Canada while I lecture as a senior lecturer at the University of Mines and Technology in Ghana.

Host: How did you fund your studies in Wales and your PhD? Did you pay out of pocket or apply for grants?

Dr. Afum: My journey has been full of God's grace and blessings. Upon getting to the university in Ghana, I received a four-year merit scholarship from Spacefon, now MTN. For Wales, I got the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship where the Commonwealth Commission paid the tuition and the university covered my maintenance fees.

For the PhD, I received the Ontario Trillium Scholarship. I think there was only one or two slots for the school, and I got it. The Commonwealth scholarship to Wales was also only one slot for the school. I was also funded by my supervisor to study applied geostatistics at the University of Alberta.

Host: What is the difference in the mining sector in Ghana compared to other African countries? What kind of challenges and opportunities exist?

Dr. Afum: I've involved myself in almost all the large-scale mines in Ghana, except the recent ones in the north. The Ghanaian mines are well developed because the mining engineering education, along with supporting fields like geological engineering, surveying, and metallurgy, has always been produced by the University of Mines and Technology. Though the university is relatively new, it has an old history since 1952. It has traveled through technical colleges and became a fully fledged university, producing several mining professionals.

Most of the mining professionals all over Africa have one way or another been trained by mining professionals from Ghana. Our regulation is also very robust - most mining companies across West Africa have been transferring our regulations into their jurisdictions.

There's been significant migration for education: I've taught people from Kenya, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Liberia. Currently we have Chinese and Japanese students, and Nigerians who come to study. Mining companies sponsor their workers to study so they can go back and help their country.

Interestingly, South Africans don't migrate as much for mining education. People from Ghana go to South Africa mainly for their second degrees - masters or PhD.

Host: I've heard there's a class divide in Ghana. How easy is it for someone from any background to make it to university and achieve professional success?

Dr. Afum: I'd differ from that observation somewhat. Ghanaian public universities are publicly funded, meaning the government supports them financially. Students who are natives pay relatively low fees compared to international students. The academic fees are almost the same across every university. So finances don't really differentiate who studies mining and who doesn't.

The trend has been that those who know about mining tend to advise their children and the younger generation within their reach. If you're working in the mines and know the prospects, you'll advise anyone who approaches you to choose mining. So historically, the skewness of who studies mining was related to who had the information, not who had the money.

I was convinced by a senior friend who was studying mechanical engineering. I told him I wanted to do something related to physics and chemistry, and he said: "Then you must do mining engineering."

However, when I was entering university, there was no money because my senior brother and I were entering tertiary education at the same time. My father couldn't afford both. My mother insisted I wouldn't stay home because I did very well in my senior high school examination. Someone paid my initial admission fees before the scholarship came in the second semester.

So yes, even though fees may be relatively low, there are still people who can't afford basic necessities for their studies. That's the reality of the class structure in our society.

Host: An entrepreneur named Magatte Wade from Senegal talks about how overregulation makes it difficult to do business in Africa. She says it took two years just to open a company in Senegal. How easy is it to do business in Ghana?

Dr. Afum: I share that observation. I've lived through the business environments in both Ghana and Canada. Starting or sustaining a business in Ghana and Africa is difficult and challenging, but it also comes with a lot of networking opportunities and certain tricks. There isn't always a laid-down format, which makes it very innovative - if you're innovative, you win. If you're highly competent and well-known, you also win.

Some challenges arise when you're highly competent but still don't win, and there's no institution that can speak on your behalf.

Registering a business is easy in both Canada and Ghana. But putting your foot into the business and actually getting it going - that's where the challenges lie. In Ghana, you can navigate through if you have time, a lot of networks, and patience. In Canada, if you're a foreigner, it's very difficult too. Each person knows the system they came from, so they speak relatively about their own experience.

You should have a good strategy in place regarding regulations. Some regulations nobody follows, but if you're not in the good books of an institution, they'll enforce those regulations against you. You need to be strategic.

Ghana promotes local content policies where Ghanaians must own part of certain businesses or handle specific activities for mining companies. Some mining companies have even created community content policies, preferring to hire from the local community. You need to collaborate with community members and have local partners at the front.

In Canada, this kind of arrangement is more formalized and structured. In Ghana, it's less structured - the one with the network and the connections in the mine and community will always win.

Host: What tips would you give for building a successful local business rather than just starting and leaving?

Dr. Afum: You need to be innovative - not just in terms of technology, but in the way you do things. Have a good strategy, understand the regulations, build local networks, collaborate with community members. The approach in Africa is less formalized than in developed countries, but the market is open. You just need time, energy, and the right connections.

Host: How easy is it to find professional mining talent in Ghana?

Dr. Afum: Ghana has a lot of talent and professionals, but the challenge is that every mine has its own pedigree and history of doing things. Sometimes a mining engineer is highly skilled in one system, and when they move to a different company using different software, that company doesn't want to engage them because they believe the person can't do the job.

Sometimes the professionals themselves believe they can't do it either, so they become unfavorable candidates. Other times, a person knows 20% of the required software but declares full competency. You engage them and discover they needed 60% proficiency to function well, but that declaration was hidden.

Good recruiters can identify this gap and support both the professional and the mining company. The approach should be: "I know you are 90% good in another software but only 20% good in ours. Based on that knowledge, you could translate it into our system. We'll give you one month of training before putting you in the field."

The technical knowledge base from school is very high, but the technological knowledge base is very low. Universities are now working to collaborate with software developers to improve technological training so graduates have that foundation before entering the industry.

Host: Is mining the primary force driving Ghana's development? Are there any 100% Ghanaian-owned mining companies?

Dr. Afum: Mining companies have transformed Ghana significantly, contributing heavily to the GDP. They've also changed the perception of mining. In the past, everybody saw it as a very dangerous business associated with disasters. But the mining companies changed the narrative - they showed that we can mine safely, achieve zero injuries in a full year, and maintain zero tolerance for safety incidents.

In my class in 2004, we had only 29 students. Before that, classes had as few as 15 or 6. When the gold price increased in 2006-2008, there was a massive influx of students into mining programs. Universities also strategically encouraged women in mining by adjusting admission cutoffs.

The government, universities, and the Chamber of Mines worked together on scholarships for students from mining communities. Since 2004-2005, mining companies have been sponsoring community students into mining education programs.

In Ghana, there are two main scales of mining: small-scale and large-scale. Small-scale mining is reserved exclusively for Ghanaians by regulation. Large-scale mining is open to anyone. One or two large-scale mines are fully owned by Ghanaians, though they have foreign investors. Small-scale mining is fully owned and some are fully funded by Ghanaians.

Host: Has the focus shifted from gold to other minerals, especially with the rise of rare earth minerals?

Dr. Afum: Over time, diamond was the preferred mineral. When the gold price shot up, gold overtook diamond. Most mining companies are now focused on gold, though diamond is still mined on a small basis. We also have manganese being mined, bauxite that has been mined over several decades, and recently we discovered lithium, which is currently being developed. Other critical minerals identified across the country include feldspar, mica, kaolin, and clays.

The regulation creates an interesting tension: the surface rights belong to individuals or families, but the minerals underneath are vested in the president - they belong to the government. This creates challenges when communities are displaced for mining operations. Mining companies have gone into mining benefit agreements with communities, but some groups always feel left out.

Most mining companies follow international standards for mine closure and reclamation. After mining, they conduct mine closure studies, reclamation, and remediation. They work with communities to decide whether to flood a pit for fish farming or reclaim the land for agriculture. I've seen mining companies reclaim land and showcase oil palm trees and mangoes growing there.

Host: Is there illegal mining happening in Ghana?

Dr. Afum: The story of artisanal mining is a very complex, wicked problem. When we were young, after it rained we could see gold spot nuggets shining. Our fathers and grandfathers would tell us those were valuable, and we'd grab them. That's how it started.

Over time, community members were able to detect that certain trees grow in areas with mineral deposits - they're all mineral indicator plants leading to the raw minerals. They learned to track the direction of mineral trends, knowing that if minerals appear in one spot, they'll also appear along the same line.

With development of technology, they moved from handheld shovels to front-end excavators. Instead of sluice boards, they got large trommel screens. After mining all the alluvial deposits, they started crushing hard rock, which meant they needed to blast. So they found sources for explosives, and the whole operation transformed.

This is where it gets complex. They've moved beyond artisanal mining to a form that doesn't even have a name in the books. We classify them all as artisanal miners, but they've advanced much closer to large-scale mining - they have their 40-ton trucks, 20-ton trucks. Some might have registered initially but won't renew their licenses.

In Africa, knowledge has always been transferred through songs, stories, and mentorship rather than written in books. Retired miners, 60 to 65 years old, have trained people who never had formal classroom education. They make decisions based on experience, not technology. If there's a crack underground, they have ideas about where it leads, but they don't have the geological modeling tools that trained mining professionals use to support decision-making.

They spend much more energy and finances but get smaller returns. They believe mining professionals are too expensive and also that they don't understand practical mining. Their perception is: "We've been doing this for 15 years. A mining professional just finished school and worked for 4 years - what does he know?"

Some of these operations have local and foreign investors. An investor might fund the capital and operations, then become the first buyer with pre-agreed rates below market price. If gold is at $2,600, they might buy at $1,500. The workers receive very little, but it keeps them going.

Host: How easy is it for a Ghanaian university graduate to find a mining job?

Dr. Afum: Mining used to be an unpopular program of choice, but now it's at the top of the list. A recent admission cycle for mining engineering alone had over 2,300 applicants. If you don't have the best grade, you won't be part of the 300 or 400 students being admitted. And those numbers are large compared to developed countries, where classes might have 8 or 15 students.

The challenge is that mining professionals are all fighting for limited spots in traditional large-scale mining companies. Ghana has no more than 15 large-scale mines. If you have 400 graduates in a class, how many will get employed?

During global economic downturns, most mining companies did massive layoffs. Many of those positions have never been refilled. One person is still doing multiple jobs. Even as gold prices increased, companies haven't fully restored their workforce.

Communities also insist that mining companies employ people from the local area. A qualified mining engineer who doesn't come from the community might not be a favorite candidate, even if they're the most intelligent person. Some mining executives disagree with me, but I always ask: should people from the capital where banks are located demand that only locals be employed in the banking sector?

When a graduate must enter the industry, they're relying on who they know to connect them to the right hiring manager. And in Africa, most hiring is done by human resources, not the technical person - which is different from developed countries.

Dr. Afum: My advice to mining graduates is: you need to strategize and position yourself as a global graduate. You should be able to function well in your locality, your country, other African countries, and developed countries. You should be able to compete with a mining graduate from Canada.

If you're only technically biased and not technologically biased, you're being ruled out of the competition. Get your initial degree, but ensure that when Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Congo need mining professionals, you can fit that role.

If it's about pit optimization, you should be able to do it technically and technologically. If it's about drill and blast engineering, you should function using any tool. The mining professional should also be business-oriented so they can facilitate business ventures even without a full-scale mine job.

You can support the banking industry that provides funding to small-scale mining companies. Banks need to vet business plans and financial proposals, but they don't understand the mining business. That's where you come in.

Join student organizations. I'm a patron of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Tarkwa Chapter, since it was founded around 2014-2015. Attend webinars, workshops, engage with mining professionals, listen to industry trends. Get your sub-skills ready, learn how to engage people.

When you finish school in Ghana, you're initially positioned as a national service personnel in any institution. Be strategic about it - if the government places you at an elementary school, I'd prefer you come to the university as a teaching assistant. Most graduates just go with the flow. This generation needs to be strategic.

Host: When looking for jobs in Canada or Europe, how do you distinguish yourself? Are there any tricks for resumes?

Dr. Afum: When I got to Wales, one of the coordinators thought I was from China because of the spelling of my name. I've heard many comments from hiring managers about how names affect their selection process. Some people rebrand themselves, which is fine.

Almost all hiring managers check social media. The first place they'll go is LinkedIn because it's a clean professional site. Some even check TikTok and Facebook. So you need to package yourself carefully.

These days, hiring managers don't review resumes themselves - they allow AI to review them. The AI is instructed to look for specific keywords. Structure your resume based on the job advertisement. If you're applying to many jobs with a standard resume, AI won't screen you into the preferred candidates.

Here's an example: if they're looking for a project engineer good in scheduling and designing using AutoCAD, and you can do all of this, you should pick the exact words from the advert and incorporate them into your resume. As soon as you upload it, AI will pick all the keywords and rate you.

I also know people who were rated well by AI, but the hiring manager knew them personally and chose not to hire them. So my advice to hiring managers: don't rely on technology fully, maintain your own judgment as well.

Dr. Afum: I'm all over the place in Ghana. I teach as a senior lecturer in the mining engineering department at the University of Mines and Technology. Over the years, I've taught several courses including operation research, drilling and blasting, explosives engineering, and mine optimization.

I've taught underground mine planning and design, surface mining systems, surface mine planning and design, drilling and blasting, and mine ventilation and dewatering. I currently teach operations research.

My consulting work brings mining and environment together. I focus on environmental impact prediction and modeling, looking at the impact of blasting on structures - structural prediction and modeling. I also do water modeling, atmospheric impact prediction including air blasts, dust, and other factors.

I've supported mines in mine closure, reclamation, and remediation. Currently, I'm supporting some mines in mine optimization studies and mine planning strategy. I always tell them: don't dump your low-grade ore away.

In Canada, I support Queen's University in their final year underground mine design course. Outside the classroom, I do extensive professional training. Every quarter, I organize senior mining officials training. The Minerals Commission of Ghana evaluates mining professionals on their competencies - from blast man to mining foreman, superintendent, and mine manager level. I train them on regulation, technicalities, and how to pass their exams.

I'm a qualified person for the NI 43-101 standard reports and also a member and chartered professional of the AusIMM, so I help with the JORC Code as well. My most recent work was with a mine in Burkina Faso.

You can find me on LinkedIn - just type my full name and my profile will pop up.