By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
Government is systematically developing gold mining champions after the South African model towards indigenous ownership of the Ghanaian mining sector for accelerated national socio-economic development.
The agenda is being pursued through the Community Mining Scheme that is meant for the participation of only Ghanaians.
The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources responsible for Mining, Mr. George Mireku Duker, made this known in the Ashanti region, when he inaugurated the Adankwame Community Mining Scheme in the Atwima Nwabiagya South Municipality.
Atwima Nwabiagya South Municipality is one of the administrative districts in the Ashanti region hard hit by the illegal gold mining menace also known as galamsey.
The problem is so pervasive that large tracts of arable land, crop and cocoa farms have been forcibly seized and destroyed by these miners.
This happens when a farm owner refuses to sell out his or her holding to these miners for a fee.
Due to fear of these landlords and land ladies losing their properties at no cost to galamseyers, they are compelled to trade off their holdings.
Recently, the Municipal Assembly recorded the trapping to death of two illegal miners who were prospecting for gold underground.
The setting aside of a 500-acre land at Adankwame near Akropong for a Community Mining Scheme has come as a big relief to not only the gold miners in the area, but also the chiefs who own the lands and the farmers since they can now be spared the threat of losing their properties to illegal mining virtually at no cost at the expense also of the natural environment.
The Adankwame Community Mining Scheme has also been introduced to the modern gold extracting machine known as ‘Gold Kacha’ recently imported by the government to provide mercury-free gold extraction at optimal success rate of about 95 percent.
The Scheme is also being provided with experts to provide technical support to the miners.
The Atwima Nwabiagya Municipal Chief Executive, Mr. Michael Amoah Awuku, disclosed that the illegal gold miners have developed a new means of searching for gold deposit using a portable mobile device while employing informants along the communities making their arrests difficult.
The MP for the area, Mr. Emmanuel Agyei Anhwere, said with the rate of unemployment in the country assuming a national security challenge, the Community Mining Scheme at Adankwame will help address the canker of youth delinquency in the constituency.
The Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources responsible for Mining, Mr. George Mireku Duker, noted that the constitution of Ghana has vested all the natural resources in the country in the President and warned that no person has any other authority in law to arrogate the power to permit mining anywhere in the country to another for mining.
The Deputy Minister disclosed that government is using the Community Mining Schemes as a catalyst toward developing indigenous mining champions to eventually takeover the mining sector in the country after the South African model.
Later, the Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources performed a cluster inauguration of Mining Committees for all the 17 Community Mining Schemes in the Ashanti region.
The Committees are made up of the Municipal and District Chief Executives, representatives of the Assemblies and traditional authority in the respective areas.
They are to regulate the various Community Mining Schemes in their jurisdictions to protect the natural environment including water bodies from destruction.