He said the activity of sand winning has affected the provision of public infrastructure such as school blocks, affected farming activities and brought about various diseases as the uncovered pits bred mosquitoes amongst other health concerns.

Nana Akwansrahene made the appeal in an interview, after his installation ceremony at Akyem Apapam in the Eastern Region.

He said more educational structures are needed in the area to promote teaching and learning for the children to acquire knowledge to help grow the economy, but the degradation of the environment must be halted first.

Nana Akwansrahene called on the chiefs to involve themselves in the effort to stop the activities sand winners, and  also avoid the selling of lands without the prior knowledge of Okyenhene, Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panyin, who is the sole owner of the Akyem Abuakwa lands.

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Source: GNA

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According to him, the unlawful activities of sand miners is having a negative impact on the environment and believes that a robust plan is needed to stop the menace.

He told Citi News that, sand mining has to a large extent affected farming activities in many areas including the North Tongu constituency in the Volta Region. He also described the activity as being worse than illegal mining.

“Sand winning can be even worse than ‘galamsey’ because they can degrade a large short in land in short time because it goes very fast. So, if you go to areas like the north Tongu constituency you see a lot of degradation from sand winning. It has affected the farming activities when they grow the maize, pepper and so one which is very popular in the area, it does not do well,” he said.

The widespread activities of sand minners have compelled parliament to set up a five-member committee to investigate and make recommendations to fight the illegal activity but Professor Frimpong Boateng believes that a major way of tackling the situation is by issuing permits and putting in place effective regulation mechanisms to check the activities of the sand miners.

“They should be given the permit. Sand winning is like mining, they get the permit from the minerals commission… it is not the EPA,” he said.

The issuance of permit for sand winning in Ghana has long been accepted to regulate the activity, however, most people engaged in the business of sand winning do not follow the due procedure to do so.

In a separate interview, the Chairman of the National Association of Sand and Stoneworkers and Tipper Trucks Users (NasWottu), Peter Donkor called for decentralization of the process of permit issuance from Accra to all districts and also work to make the process less stressful.

In Ghana, the Mining and Minerals Act (act 703), regulates the activities of stone and sand winners.

It classifies sand and stone as major minerals and therefore subjects them to the same process of obtaining permits as it is done in the case of those who mine gold, diamond, bauxite and other precious minerals.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @jnyabor

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The Executive Director of the GII, Vitus Azeem told Citi News, the institutions represented on the committee were one way or the other, linked to the case “and when you constitute these people in the committee to investigate themselves, I don’t know what else anybody would have expected…it was a waste of time.”

Government in 2013 set up a technical committee to investigate an agreement between the GRA and Subah Info-solutions after news broke that the GRA had paid huge amounts of money to Subah for no work done.

Subah was contracted by the GRA to electronically monitor domestic call data records (CDRs) of the telecommunication companies in the country to enable the GRA collect appropriate taxes from the telcom companies.

The technical committee was to review and renegotiate the service agreement between the Revenue Agencies Governing Board (RAGB) and Subah Info-solution.

It was made up of representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the GRA, the National Communications Authority (NCA), the Attorney General (AG) and Subah Info-Solutions.

The report among other things said, GHC 74 million was paid to Subah-Info-solutions instead of the reported GHC 144 million for services rendered within three years.

Earlier investigations however revealed, Subah was paid GHC 144 million for no work done; a claim the committee rebuffed.

According to the GII, the committee failed to look at other aspects of the contract apart from establishing the legitimacy of the board chairman of GRA to sign the contract.

The committee in its report stated that the contract agreement between the two institutions cannot be set aside, but the GII is of the opinion that that advice could have been given the AG because, “you don’t need a committee to come out and say whether the contract can be set aside or not.”

Mr. Azeem pointed out that the terms of reference for the committee was to review and re-negotiate agreement but rather focused their attention on the validity of the contract “so I think the committee didn’t actually do us any good at all.”

By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @osamidan

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