Minister designate, Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has disclosed how he intends to tackle the issue of illegal mining (galamsey) in the country.
Speaking during his ministerial vetting, he stated that many people are involved in illegal mining because per his observations, the processes involved in getting a license to do legal mining is sometimes cumbersome and time consuming.
“Unless you have political connections you can’t get the license so the focus is for mining activities to be done legally in all approved areas. We have talked about decentralizing operations in various institutions but to decentralize these services to allow communities and let all know that if you want to do legal mining, this is the right channel to go through and you can even do it at the comfort of your home on your computer. You just have to register” he said.
He applauded the minerals commission for making progress with digitalizing some of their services and making it easier for individuals and companies to get their license to mine legally.
Mr. Buah shared that per the NDC’s manifesto, they plan to recategorize mining and that is exactly what they will do.
“As we speak, it is small scale mining and large scale mining which is not being done well. We don’t have the classification for medium scale mining which makes supervision very difficult”.
“That is why we will recategorize mining and create cooperatives and then create what we call the gold board which will really be the support system for the cooperative mining providing support and assistance. We will also work with the universities and bring geologists and experts on board to be in the same location when doing this” he added.
He highlighted that they don’t have an issue with large scale miners because they are organized unlike small scale miners who can’t be managed.
“So the intention is to create a system that allows everybody to feel that it is easy to do legal mining and that is what we will pursue” he emphasized.
