The component, Alternative Livelihood Project, Oil Palm Plantation, which is being funded by the Minerals Development Fund, under the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry, seeks to employ illegal miners who are affected by the ban on all forms of small scale mining.

The project, which is being executed by Richie Plantation Limited, will in 2018, also employ 17,000 thousand youth who were hitherto engaged in illegal mining.

[contextly_sidebar id=”2wvfwSQPnGIYJBx35Ib2g2A21a1LoedJ”]Currently, Richie Plantation limited has over six hundred thousand palm seedlings out of the one million seedlings expected from the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry.

During a tour of the nursery in the Dunkwa-On-Offin in the Central Region, a Deputy Lands Minister, in charge of Mines, Barbara Oteng Gyasi, indicated that the project is geared towards government’s quest to reclaim mined areas across the country, as part of the implementation of the Multi sectoral Integrated Mining Project.

A Deputy Lands Minister in Charge of Forestry, who was part of the team, also disclosed that the recruitment would be undertaken by the Forestry Commission in collaboration with his Ministry.

He added that those who would be employed under the project would be distributed to the various metropolitan, municipal and district offices of the Youth Employment Authority.

Their job description would be to raise seedlings and support the government’s reclamation programme of recovering degraded mined areas, and would receive a monthly allowance of Ghc400.00.

Richard Ekow Quansah, the Chief Executive Officer of the Richie Plantation Limited, said his outfit had received three million Ghana Cedis this year from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources for expansion of the nursery project.
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By: Kojo Agyeman/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post 160 ‘galamseyers’ employed under MMIP agric project, 17,000 others to enroll appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

They were arrested upon a tip off by a member of the galamsey  task-force in the area.

The illegal miners were mining opposite the Tarkwa Senior High School very close to an area where the Lands Ministry was holding a National Stakeholders’ workshop on the Multilateral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP).

Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu who lead the team of police officers to make the arrest told journalists that the fight against galamsey is very difficult but the ministry will not give up.

“Chinese people are doing this illegal activity; they’ve recruited our own people to be working with them. The pit that they are using is a very old pit and it’s been there for years without any safety precautionary measure being put in place they are in there and they are mining. Tomorrow we will hear about a cave in and that becomes another issue.”

“The idea that they think they are not polluting any water or causing land degradation but we all saw the amount of water that they were pumping from the pit. So if they tell us that they are not polluting any water what do they mean by that?”

Mr. Owusu also complained that the Electricity Company of Ghana’s branch at Tarkwa provided the Chinese miners with electricity to undertake the illegality.

“We saw Electricity Company of Ghana goes in and supply power to an illegal activity while their own regulation states that before they supply power to any premises, they must know who the owner is, they must know what work you are going to use the power for. And if it is an illegal activity they have every right to deny them power. When we get to Accra, we will report them to their main office so they know what their agency is doing here,” he added.

Other Chinese illegal miners have already been arrested in other areas including Kyebi in Eastern Region for engaging in illegal mining.

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By: Godwin A. Allotey & Kojo Agyeman/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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This was captured in the much hyped Multilateral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP) document put together by the governing New Patriotic Party in its anti-galamsey efforts.

In the 66-page document, dredging of rivers, reclamation of degraded lands and freeing of lands for agribusiness is estimated to cost Ghana $50 million.

Implementation of social interventions to facilitate the livelihoods of persons likely be economically affected over the halt in galamsey activities has been captured in the document to cost $50 million.

Funding

In the document the amount is supposed to be financed by statutory funds such as the Mineral Development Fund and Annual Budgetary allocation from Government.

Other sources of funding include partnerships with Diplomatic Missions (Funding/Technical Support), Civil Societies, Corporate bodies and other funding organizations through PPP [Public Private Partnership] arrangements among others.

The government through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources as part of activities to stop the menace, has temporarily placed a ban on the issuance of licenses for small-scale mining, and directed all illegal miners to cease the practice and evacuate from the various sites.

50% of the amount is expected to come from funding partners, 20% from Government of Ghana, 20% from PPP and rest of the 10% from corporate bodies.

Anti-galamsey fight

Until recently, many of Ghana’s fresh water bodies had become poisonous with thousands of acres of fertile farmlands destroyed as a result of the actions of illegal miners.

Government subsequently launched the MMIP policy document stating that it has a clear road map in how it intends to stop illegal mining in Ghana.

In a related development, stakeholders in the mining sector are currently meeting in Tarkwa in the Western Region for a National workshop on how to control illegal mining.

The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, John Peter Amewu used the opportunity to explain how the MMIP policy will work

He said government among other things has decided to decentralize the Minerals Commission to boost the fight against illegal mining.

“We will ensure that mining activities are undertaken in an environmental sustainable manner. We will ensure that land restoration is undertaken after mining operations come to an end. We will fully decentralize the Minerals Commission by establishing additional districts of the commission where appropriate. These were the fundamental principles that we presented to Ghanaians based on which Ghanaians looked through and endorsed the NPP as a government.”

“It is therefore a duty on us as a government to ensure that the rationale and fundamental principles based on which we’ve been elected are adhered to and strictly in terms of deliverables. These in many other strategies have informed the development of the Multilateral Mining Integrated Project document,” he added.

Click for a copy of the draft of the MMIP policy document

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By: Godwin A. Allotey & Kojo Agyeman/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Implementation of anti-galamsey plan to cost $150 million appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.