AngloGold Ashanti Limited has reiterated its commitment to playing a key role in unlocking the huge potential that exists in the mining sector to propel national growth and development.

The Managing Director of AGA Obuasi, Eric Asubonteng stressed this is in line with one of the company’s cherished values of making the communities in which it operates better off.

Mr Asubonteng was speaking at the installation of Prof. Horace G. Campbell as the third occupant of the Kwame Nkrumah Chair, which is sponsored by the company at the Institute of African Studies (IAS), University of Ghana in Accra on Tuesday. The event also witnessed the delivery of the chair’s inaugural address. The chair has previously been occupied by Prof Kofi Anyidoho who was installed in February 2011 and Prof Jacob Gordon, installed in February 2013.

He said the company was proud to be supporting the chair, which has contributed not only to academic discourse, but also to policy discourse at various levels..

Touching on the inaugural theme, he stressed the need to build bridges around the Africa unification discourse by focusing more on trade, culture and technology among others, taking advantage of the continent’s unique strengths.

Professor Campbell, whose lecture was on the theme, “Reconstruction, Transformation and the Unification of the peoples of Africa in the 21st Century: Rekindling the Pan African spirit of Kwame Nkrumah”, called on African scholars and activists to rethink the basic ideas of Pan Africanism as the current educational structure lacked the inspirational ideas of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and other African visionaries.

He explained that the effects of the convergence of multiple forces such as environmental, financial, health pandemics, militarism as well as geo-political changes in the global space required new analysis and ideas to enable the African continent become productive in every sector.

According to him, the reconstruction of Africa would require a whole transformation of relevant sectors such as political, economic, gender relations as well as culture that would chart a new direction offering exciting possibilities for African renewal in the 21st century.

Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, Director of the IAS, said the institute has a robust infrastructure for knowledge expansion, indicating that they expect the new occupant to, among others, deepen appreciation and understanding of the important role played by the social sciences.

She also paid glowing tribute to the late John Owusu, former Corporate Affairs Manager of AGA for playing a tireless role in the establishment of the chair.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ebenezer Owusu, who chaired the ceremony, described the Kwame Nkrumah Chair as the most visible in the University and commended AGA for its continuous support.