Cabinet Approves Revised Minerals and Mining Bill, New Royalty Regime 

Cabinet has endorsed a revised Minerals and Mining Bill for transmission to Parliament, marking the first major overhaul of Act 703 in two decades.

Announcing this at a press briefing on Wednesday, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Hon. Emmanuel Armah Buah, said the review followed extensive stakeholder consultations.

According to the Minister, the revised Bill introduces district mining committees as the first point of contact for licensing applications. It also creates a new medium-scale mining category to bridge the gap between small-scale and large-scale operations.

Hon. Buah said the Bill abolishes the reconnaissance licence and replaces it with a single prospecting licence with a maximum duration of five years.

Mining leases will also be capped at 20 years, and every lease will now be required to have a mandatory community development agreement.

“The revised Bill provides an updated, coherent and forward-looking legal regime to ensure that mining contributes immensely to national development,” he stated.

The Minister added that Cabinet has approved a revised Minerals and Mining Policy, originally drafted in 2014, to strengthen local content and promote domestic value addition in the sector.

Cabinet also approved the Minerals and Mining (Royalties) Regulations, 2025, L.I. 2517, which introduces a sliding-scale royalty regime tied to commodity price cycles.

“This self-adjusting mechanism offers greater predictability to investors than a rigid fixed rate vulnerable to low-price cycles,” Hon. Buah explained.

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