General

MLNR promote responsible Mining

By Felix Coffie

Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources George Mireku Duker has charged district mining committees to promote responsible, viable and safer mining methods. He said If Ghana is the leading gold producer in Africa then there must be something to show the people of Ghana and that is why the President is so committed to ensuring that whatever we generated from the mining space must be used for the benefit of the citizenry.

Mr Mireku Duker said this when he outdoored the Wassa East District Mining Committee in the Western Region. He said the Community Mining Committees have become necessary to scale up Ghana’s gold production. The Deputy Minister said government has reviewed the 3 percent withholding tax on the sale of gold to one point 5 percent. He said the three percent was a disincentive which made it possible to smuggle gold out of Ghana to sell. He empowered the Committee to act in accordance with the dictates of the law and not show any form of compromise or bias.

“The composition is rich and I believe you are determined to believe that on your mandate, confidence is so high and I believed you’ll go by the tenet that establish the committee”, he stated.

“We have commissioned this Committee to ensure that more of the small-scale mining sector is streamlined and beneficial to the people of this district and Ghana as a whole. We want to use gold and our resource to develop the country,” he said.

The Tarkwa Nsuaem Lawmaker said government intends to use the Community Mining Scheme (CMS) to grow Ghanaian representation in the mining space and support them to grow into big mining firms.

He, however, cautioned that this commendable idea of the government would be fruitless if activities such as gold smuggling and illegal mining are not stopped.

He, therefore, urged Ghanaians to help the government to tackle the menace that is threatening the growth of the mining sector.

Chairman of the Committee, Emmanuel Boakye who also doubles as the Chief Executive of Wassa East, in his acceptance speech said he is grateful to the government for the honor done him and other members of the committee and promised to “work assiduously to ensure that sanity prevails as far as community mining is concerned”.

Other members of the committee are Nana Kwabena Ampomah, Jones Benjamin Tawiah, Moses Kpebu, Isaac Nwimbele and Bright Arko.