Mining subcontractors in Ghana: get paid for what you actually did
Get paid for what you actually did.
You supply machines or crews into a bigger operation. Your invoice meets their deductions every month.
Darikoda gives you the hour, fuel, and output evidence to defend what you billed. Captured at source.
You supply machines or crews into a bigger operation. Your invoice meets their deductions every month. Darikoda gives you the hour, fuel, and output evidence to defend what you billed.
Where the QS handover walks
The places a mining subcontractor pays the difference between their record and the contractor's.
Hours you worked versus hours you billed.
Day-works billing means hours equal revenue. If your evidence is weaker than the contractor's tally at month-end, the difference walks. Drilling, blasting and crew shifts need start-stop timestamps captured at the event.
Fuel against the contractor's deduction.
Fuel is usually supplied by the contractor and deducted from your payment. When your record of receipt is verbal or paper-based, the deduction reads whatever the contractor's tally says.
End-of-shift handover that survives the QS.
A defendable, time-stamped log of work done you can hand to the contractor's QS at end-of-shift. Not three days later. Not reconstructed from memory. The QS sees the same record you do.
Output evidence for measurement disputes.
Metres drilled, holes blasted, bowser loads delivered, tyres serviced. Output captured per shift, per operator, with GPS attribution. The disputed number stops being your word against theirs.
Operator attribution on shared machines.
PIN-level worker attribution. When one operator runs the rig today and another runs it tomorrow, the hours, the fuel and the output stay attached to the person who did them. No one is logged in as someone else.
Reputation evidence for the next contract.
Your operating record is the case for the next tender. Cleanly captured shift logs make you the subcontractor the contractor calls first, not the one whose paperwork costs them a week of QS time.
What changes at the moment of dispute
Two scenarios where the QS handover changes everything.
Old way
Hours and metres logged in a notebook. The QS arrives at end-of-shift wanting numbers. Your operator is on the next hole. Recollection becomes the record. Three days later, two of the holes show short on the tally.
On Darikoda
Operator PIN at start, operator PIN at stop, output count, GPS, time-stamp, photo. The QS opens the same record you do. The handover happens in 60 seconds with structured evidence rather than a memory test.
End-of-shift
the moment the dispute is cheapest to resolve.
Old way
Contractor's fuel ledger says 420L drawn by your crew this week. Your operators say 380L. Difference deducted. You absorb the 40L because the receipt evidence is verbal.
On Darikoda
Each dispense PIN-attributed to your operator, time-stamped, photo of the pump reading. When the deduction conversation lands, the variance has structured evidence on your side.
Per-dispense receipt
the unit at which deduction defence becomes possible.
Different scenarios. Same underlying gap. Same closing move.
Three engines applied to a subcontracted crew
The operating record, framed for the crew that hands its log to the QS.
ENGINE 01
Time-stamped hour-meter, attributed to the operator.
Every billable hour with start time, stop time, operator PIN, GPS-confirmed position. The contractor's QS sees the same record you do. The deduction conversation happens with evidence, not without.
ENGINE 02
Fuel receipt captured at the event.
Operator PIN at the dispense. Photo of the pump reading. Quantity. Time-stamp. GPS. If the contractor's tally says different, you have the structured record to compare against. No more silent variance.
ENGINE 03
End-of-shift log the QS can sign on the spot.
Hours, fuel, output, faults. All time-stamped, all attributed. Hand it over at end-of-shift, not three days later. The hours you worked are the hours that get billed.
Proof point
A defendable log of work done at end-of-shift. The hours you worked are the hours that get billed. No reconstruction. No memory dispute.
Built so the QS handover survives the contractor's measurement.
Subcontractor monthly cycles live or die on the integrity of the record at the moment of work. Five commitments make that record survive the trip to the cert.
- Every shift entry saves locally first and syncs when signal returns. Remote drill sites do not wait for connectivity.
- Every operator at the controls leaves a PIN-attributed trail. The hours and output stay attached to the person who did them.
- Every fuel receipt carries a photo and a GPS-confirmed position. The deduction conversation has structured evidence rather than memory.
- Failed syncs become visible issues, not silent gaps in the monthly QS handover.
- The cert pack you hand the contractor's QS exports to PDF or CSV in the format their workflow expects.
If you do nothing
The cost of one more month on the contractor's tally alone.
Illustrative scenarios at typical Ghana subcontractor scale. The audit produces the specific number for your crew, your contract structure, and your monthly cycle.
Scenario 01
5 disputed hours per machine per month on a 4-machine crew.
5 hours × USD 100/hour subcontracted rate × 4 machines × 12 months = USD 24,000 per year absorbed across the crew.
Structured end-of-shift handover recovers the gap within the first dispute cycle.
Scenario 02
10% fuel variance absorbed against deduction.
USD 8,000 monthly fuel allocation × 10% absorbed variance = USD 800 per month leaking through one line item.
USD 9,600 per year. One photo per dispense closes the evidence gap.
Scenario 03
One short-measured output cycle per month.
20 metres drilled but measured as 17. At GHS 800/metre that is GHS 2,400 absorbed per dispute. One per month is GHS 28,800 per year.
The metre-by-metre, time-stamped log resolves it before the cert lands.
Most subcontractors recognise at least two of these. The audit identifies the biggest line for your operation.
Inside a typical month
What a Darikoda shift looks like for a subcontracted crew.
From operator PIN at start of shift to a defendable monthly cert pack.
Shift start
Operator logs in at the tablet, PIN-attributed.
Machine, project, hour-meter start. The shift begins with a structured record rather than a notebook line.
During the shift
Output and fuel captured at the event.
Metres drilled or holes blasted, fuel receipts with photo and GPS, fault reports. Each entry attributed to the operator at the controls.
Shift end
End-of-shift handover to the contractor's QS.
Hours, output, fuel, faults exported in seconds. The QS signs against structured evidence rather than reconstruction.
Month-end
Monthly cert pack already built.
The cert submission is a tidy export of structured shift records, ready for the main contractor's measurement cycle.
A note from Theo
“The contract does not pay for the work you actually did. It pays for the work you can prove you did.”
Mining subcontractors I worked alongside in Ghana share one operational reality. The contract does not pay for the work you actually did. It pays for the work you can prove you did. The gap between those two numbers is where small subcontractors absorb most of their leakage, and the gap closes when the evidence is captured at the event rather than reconstructed at month-end. The operating record is the unit that closes it. PIN, GPS, time-stamp, photo. Five extra seconds per event. A defendable monthly cert pack at the other end. That is what we built for crews supplying machines and labour into bigger Ghana operations.
Theo Ilori
Founder, Darikoda. UCL MSc Mechanical Engineering. Formerly GE precision turbines, Caterpillar/Unatrac Ghana & Nigeria.
Mining subcontractor FAQ.
The questions other Ghana mining subcontractors ask in the first call.
We are a 3-asset drilling crew. Is Darikoda overkill for us?
No. Smaller subcontractors (drilling crew, blast crew, water-bowser fleet, tyre service crew, 1 to 5 assets) typically use Darikoda for one specific thing: a defendable, time-stamped log of work done that you can hand to the contractor's QS at end-of-shift. That is a tighter use-case than the full operating record we build for contractors and full miners, but the same architecture supports it.
How does the platform handle remote pit sites on patchy 4G?
Every field write saves locally first and syncs when signal returns. Operators do not wait for connectivity to record an hour-meter, a fuel event or a fault report. Failed syncs become visible issues, not silent gaps.
What if the contractor refuses to look at the digital record?
The record exists regardless. You can print or export it as a PDF for QS submission, share it via WhatsApp, or include it in your monthly invoice pack. The digital record makes the deduction harder to dispute, because the evidence is structured and time-stamped rather than reconstructed.
Does it replace Cat Product Link or KOMTRAX on our machines?
No. OEM telematics handle GPS and hour-meter telemetry on machines that have it. Darikoda is the operating record above that. The layer that ties machine hours to the contract, the fuel to the deduction, the operator to the shift. Telemetry where it exists is additive.
Want the leakage map for your subcontracted operation?
30 minutes on WhatsApp. You keep the map regardless of next steps.
Patterns described here are drawn from extensive field audits and industry research across Ghana's mining, construction, roadworks, and quarry sectors. No specific operator is named or identifiable.