The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has reminded all stakeholders that it is illegal for anybody, including sponsors, chiefs, landowners and farmers, to grant permission for mining in any part of the country.
It said the Constitution of the land had vested that authority in the Minister responsible for Land and Natural Resources and quoted the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) to warn potential offenders of severe sanctions.
Addressing the press in Accra, after last week’s mine disaster in Dunkwa-on-Offin in the Central Region, the Minister, Alhaji Collins Dauda, said henceforth, the detection of illegal mining activity anywhere would put the landowner in line for prosecution.
He said the ministry was also providing funds to facilitate the movement of a task force made up of the military and the police around the length and breadth of the country to clamp down on illegal mining activities.
He said the task force would start work from next week and flush out illegal miners from Subinso, near Tepa in the Ahafo Ano North District of the Ashanti Region and the Krokosoa Forest Reserve in the Juaboso District of the Western Region.
Alhaji Dauda said the government would ensure that district small-scale mining committees were set up to assist the Minerals Commission’s district officers to monitor the activities of small-scale miners, as provided in Act 703.
Earlier efforts to regulate the activities of small-scale miners had included the 1989 promulgation of the Small-Scale Gold Mining Law with the main objective of providing technical support for small-scale miners to direct all the materials produced into official channels and help generate employment, among other objectives.
That, according to the minister, had been informed by the fact that minerals mined by small-scale miners generated significant foreign exchange for the country.
In 2009 alone, the quantum of small-scale mining was estimated at 560,715 ounces of gold and 354, 443 carats of diamond, representing 18 per cent of the total gold production and 100 per cent of total diamond production.
As a result of that high level of production, the minister said the government would support the small-scale mining industry, adding that for gold and diamond alone, 177 licences had been granted since 2009 and 124 this year alone.
In addition, he said the government had, over the years, implemented a range of measures to encourage small-scale miners to operate in an economically and environmentally sustainable manner.
Alhaji Dauda said in spite of all those facilities from the government, in recent times illegal mining activities had been on the increase, facilitated by community leaders, chiefs, landowners, farmers and some opinion leaders who arrogated to themselves the power to give mining rights.
He said the rising incidence of illegal mining, in addition to the destruction of land, pollution and siltation of water bodies, had become a major concern to all and resulted in the loss of lives.
1 comment:
Minig laws and regulations are mostly outdated and unconstitutional. The laws deprive landowners of their right to exercise full ownership of their properties without burdensome governmental regulations. That a few thieves died while breaking the law must not warrant dispatching law enforcement personnel in combat mood to define and adjudicate land ownership . Such (Idi Amin style) wielding of power may go too far to defile our principle of freedom and justice, a guarding torch of our Ghanaian constitutional experience. Our freedom will be under seige if we administer justice by show of force and under the gun.
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