Ghana’s mining regulator is developing minimum wage and tender benchmarks for contract mining firms, seeking to curb aggressive underbidding as the country pushes miners to outsource more operations to local contractors, a senior official said on Thursday.

Ghana, Africa’s top gold producer, in January 2025 ordered miners to shift surface operations — blasting, loading, hauling and dumping — to Ghanaian-owned contractors and underground operations to joint ventures with at least 50% local ownership by December 31 or face sanctions. It is consistent with a broader push by Africa’s resource-rich nations to try to retain more value from their mineral wealth.

But Ghanaian mine workers have spoken out against the directive, saying contractors offer lower pay and weaker job security.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Ben Birch-Mensah, director of local content at the Minerals Commission, the national regulator, said officials wanted to ensure that workers’ pay and conditions would not suffer.

“The regulator does not want people to be worse off under contract mining,” Birch-Mensah said.

“We are putting together a baseline so that contract miners cannot pay employees below a certain threshold.”

Officials try to curb underbidding

Birch-Mensah said the commission was also preparing minimum tender benchmarks to prevent contractors from bidding below sustainable levels.

He said that in some cases aggressive underbidding had left contractors unable to meet operating costs and that a committee would be set up to work out the details of the policy.

Many firms had voluntarily outsourced mining operations before Ghana’s rules in January 2025, requiring miners to switch to contract ​mining.

Birch-Mensah said the December 2026 compliance for local contractors “is non-negotiable,” adding that Newmont (NYSE: NEM), Zijin (SHA: 601899) and Ghana Manganese Company were among firms yet to comply. The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Ghana Chamber of Mines has criticized the policy, saying contract mining should be optional, not mandatory.

The chamber, however, backed efforts to address underbidding, warning that unhealthy competition among contractors could affect worker welfare and safety.

“If people keep undercutting themselves, they may not have the resources to undertake the work, they won’t pay workers properly, they won’t train people, and safety is compromised,” Chamber CEO Ken Ashigbey said.

Ashigbey said the chamber was also exploring contractor classifications and minimum bid thresholds to curb underbidding, adding that contractors account for a significant share of mining incidents.

(Reporting by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Aurora Ellis)