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First female professor of UMAT delivers inaugural lecture
Prof. Ofori-Sarpong delivering her inaugural lecture
The First Female Professor of Minerals Engineering in Ghana and currently the Dean of School of Postgraduate Studies at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Tarkwa, in the Western Region, Prof. Grace Ofori-Sarpong, has delivered her first inaugural lecture which is also the seventh lecture of UMaT.
Her topic was “Mycohydrometallurgy; One-Pot Degradation of Double Refractory Gold Ores by Phanerochaete chrysosporium”.
She said “gold was not like a tree you could take and it would shoot up for you to come back and cut again but the moment gold was taken from the ground or soil that ended it except small particles that might be left or hidden.”
She said that technology needed to be developed in order to retrieve the hidden gold from the soil so her lecture was to get the hidden or leftover gold through the application she had researched into and developed.
Prof. Ofori-Sarpong said she was so honoured as a lady to be given the opportunity to showcase what a woman had gone through and brought to the public domain.
She said it was also a platform to tell her counterparts that they should aim high and be determined to reach the sky and surely they would get there.
She disclosed that she had a platform where she and her colleagues assisted the younger girls to aim high and use the sky as a spring board to get to the next level.
She said the gold in the hard rock needed to be broken into very smaller pieces before the gold could be obtained but some gold would still be hidden after breaking the rock so pretreatment was needed to get the rest of the gold out.
She said one way of getting gold was through burning but that method polluted the environment so microorganisms were used to extract the gold and by this method the environment would not be polluted.
The Dean said about a decade ago ‘mycohydrometallurgy’ was introduced into literature to define the application of fungi in hydrometallurgy and this brought to the fore exploration of a ‘one-pot’ transformation of carbonaceous matter (CM) and sulphidic minerals (SM).
The Chairman of the Inaugural Lecture, Vice Chancellor of UMaT, Prof. Richard Kwasi Amankwah said it was an important day in the UMaT Calendar to celebrate the first female professor to deliver her inaugural lecture.
He said as the first female Professor of UMaT all female students looked up to her as a role model for many to also climb the scaffold to greater heights.
From Peter Gbambila, Tarkwa.
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Prof Alidu Seidu files nomination for Tamale Central seat
The newly elected parliamentary candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for Tamale Central, Prof Alidu Seidu, has submitted his nomination forms to the Electoral Commission.
As of 10:00 a.m. today, he was the only person who had filed to contest the seat.
Nomination of candidates will close at the end of the day.
Associate Professor and Head of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana Legon, Prof. Alidu Seidu won the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary primaries in the Tamale Central constituency with a landslide victory.
The elections, supervised by the party’s Elections and IT Directorate in the Northern Region, saw Prof. Seidu poll 840 votes out of the total valid ballots cast.
His closest contender, Lawyer Hanan Gundadow Abdul-Rahaman, secured 536 votes.
The other aspirants could not make significant gains, with Dr. Seidu Fiter obtaining 44 votes, Aliu Abdul-Hamid 23 votes, and the rest recording fewer than 10 votes each.
In all, 1,500 ballots were cast, with 6 ballots rejected and 7 spoilt ballots recorded.
The results were signed and declared by Dr. Arnold Mashud Abukari, NDC Northern Regional Director of Elections and IT.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) held parliamentary primaries in Tamale Central to choose a candidate for the upcoming by-election following the death of the sitting Member of Parliament, Dr. Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed. Dr. Mohammed, who also served as Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, tragically died in a military helicopter crash in the Adansi Akrofuom District on August 6, 2025, alongside seven others.
His passing left the Tamale Central seat vacant, as required by Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.
The Electoral Commission has scheduled the by-election for September 30, 2025. While the NDC moved quickly to open nominations and vet aspirants, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) announced it would not contest the seat, citing the need to respect the somber circumstances and promote national unity.
By: Jacob Aggrey
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Ghana to locally refine its gold starting October 2025 – Sammy Gyamfi
The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board, Sammy Gyamfi, has announced that plans are far advanced for the establishment of a state-owned gold refinery in the country.
Speaking at the 2025 Minerals and Mining Convention, Mr Gyamfi said the refinery will process locally mined gold into bullion instead of exporting it in its raw state.
According to him, it is unacceptable that Ghana, despite being a leading gold producer in Africa, continues to export raw gold known as dore.
He explained that the Gold Board, working with the Bank of Ghana and local refineries, will from October 2025 begin refining gold locally.
He also disclosed that an ultramodern assay laboratory will be built to ensure international standards in testing gold quality.
Mr Gyamfi noted that the refinery will be wholly state-owned and will help Ghana move away from raw mineral exports to value addition.
This, he said, will boost foreign exchange earnings, create jobs, and position Ghana as a hub for gold refining and jewellery production in Africa.
The CEO stressed that the project forms part of government’s strategy to ensure the country benefits fully from its natural resources and to transform the mining sector into a driver of economic growth.
By: Jacob Aggrey
