The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Peter Amewu, has said that he has the backing of the president for his fight against illegal mining in the country.
According to him, the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, also supports his tactics adding there has not been any interference in his job.
The Minister made the remark on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday.
[contextly_sidebar id=”4CtrOxxS0yFdTPEZKXbk5TLsYdYcuEF3″]“I’ve not received any pressure from anybody. I’m receiving multilateral support; the governments of Australia, Chinese government, the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, the whole media fraternity, Ghanaians as a whole are all supporting me. There has not been any interference in the actions that we are taking now. I can tell you that the support is very huge, the president is so passionate about it and he’s been saying that we must maintain our environment for purposes of inter-generational equity,” Mr. Amewu added.
Amewu defends begging Chinese delegation
The Lands and Natural Resources Minister had been rebuked for begging a Chinese delegation to help Ghana address illegal mining in Ghana.
There are fears that if the menace is not checked Ghana may soon import water since most of the country’s water bodies have been destroyed by mining activities.
Mr. Amewu explained that because the Chinese delegation was not the ones indulging in the illegal activity, he could not attack them.
“These are diplomats; the people that visited Ghana are not the people who engage in the activity at all. If I had met Chinese who engage in illicit mining my language to them would be quite different from another group of people that I’m going to use to work on the illegal miners. I couldn’t have been harsh on them. We had to acknowledge their contributions, not all countries would do that. We have Malians, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and a lot more countries engaged in this activity but I don’t think that if you extend invitation to them, they will come and be prepared to work. So the believe is that after they move out of the field, we are going to come in with an action that will make sure that, the lawlessness is rectified.”
3-week ultimatum
The Minister further gave a three week ultimatum to persons engaging in illegal mining to stop adding that they have put in place a number of measures to clamp down on recalcitrant ones.
“We have arrested some five guys about three days ago. As for the arrest it is ongoing. But the gravity in terms of the magnitude at which this thing is ongoing, that is why we are coming in with multiple actions,” Mr. Amewu added.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin