The Ashanti regional sect of the Ghana Association of Small Scale miners has given government a 3-day ultimatum to clarify its position on small-scale mining in Ghana.
The Association said they will hit the streets to demonstrate if government ignores their threat.
[contextly_sidebar id=”O1CyMcgo7OQiQ9Ux0cIX7H7BywQsR0pB”]Frank Osei, Secretary of the association addressing a press conference lamented that small scale miners are “wrongly accused because the statement by His Excellency and his government has brought a lot of confusion to the media, to Ghanaians, to the sector.”
Citing an incident which he was greatly displeased with, he said “yesterday we woke up and we realized that our brother who is a small scale miner with all his legal documents, some group of people attacked his excavator.”
The Association has therefore asked the President, to in a matter of three days, “set the records straight, and clear the atmosphere that we small scale miners with proper documents can go back to work and save us from the hands of attackers so that this unfortunate burn down of excavator will not happen again.”
Mr. Osei said as part of efforts to prove that small scale miners in the region operate legally, the association has “formed an internal taskforce within four days they have worked hand in hand with security agencies to various villages to track down illegal miners, because we are not illegal miners, we are licensed operators.”
There have been complaints about the adverse effects of small scale illegal mining also known as galamsey on water bodies and the environment in general.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu in April 2017 ceased further issuance of new licenses to small scale miners in a bid to deal with the rising menace in the country.
He also directed owners of excavators to remove such earth moving equipment from mining areas or have them destroyed by government.
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By: Lauretta Timah/citifmonline.com/Ghana