‘Deal with foreigners engaged in illegal mining’
The Director of Policy Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of the Minerals Commission, Mr Richard Kofi Afenu, has stated that the law directs that foreigners engaged in illegal mining should be arrested and their equipment seized and kept in police custody.
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He said the Minerals and Mining Amendments Act, 2015, stipulated that upon prosecution, the illegal miners should be fined not more than 3,000 units or imprisonment of not more than 20 years or both.
Mr Afenu deputised for the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Nii Osah Mills, at a day’s workshop on developing Ghana’s Mining Vision at Akyem Oda last Tuesday.
The participants included chiefs, municipal and district chief executives and members of small-scale mining associations drawn from Birim North, Birim South, Birim Central, Kwaebibirem and Denkyembour districts.
Chief’s claim
Mr Afenu was reacting to an allegation by the Akyem Adankronohene, Osabarima Sarpong Kumankomah, that in September 2006, he seized 16 mining equipment from Chinese illegal miners operating on the Birim river and kept them in his palace.
According to Osabarima Kumankomah, the Kade police later collected the equipment from him for safekeeping at the police station but they later sold them to the same foreigners, and that had dampened his spirit and that of his elders.
Mr Afenu promised to take up the matter with the appropriate authorities.
He said Ghana was still the second largest producer of minerals in Africa and the ninth in the world, which had resulted in increased sector contribution to the national economy.
African Mining Vision
He said considering the challenge that African countries faced in the development of their mineral resources, the African Union in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa, developed the African Mining Vision (AMV) in 2009 to serve as a blueprint for the sustainable development of African natural resources.
Mr Afenu said the document which had been adopted by Heads of State of the African Union was to underpin the development of the mineral industry as a means of achieving sustainable development of the continent at the back of exploitation of the minerals.
In a welcome address, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Birim Central, Mr Kwabena Nkansah-Asare, stressed the need for mineral exploitation to be done in a humane and environmentally friendly manner devoid of violating any of the laws and regulations governing the operation of mining in the country.
“This is the only way we can assure generations yet unborn that indeed the resources were managed with their welfare in mind,” he added.
The Chief of Akyem Anyinase and former Member of the Council of State, Osabarima Owusu Gyamadu, expressed concern about the attitude of some Ghanaian licensed small-scale miners who sublet their mining concessions to foreigners.
The Akyem Achiasehene, Osabarima Gyenin Kantan, who chaired the function, spoke against exploitation of forests by foreigners for minerals.
