Martin Kwaku Ayisi, the chief executive officer of the Minerals Commission, has supported calls to root out unlicensed miners operating on water bodies.
He said that anyone mining on any body of water is doing it illegally and that the Commission has not granted any corporation a mining permit to do so.
“Going to mine on the water is a criminal activity. It is not allowed. [We have to] just go in and take them out,” He stated this in Accra yesterday during his appearance before the Parliamentary Government Assurance Committee.
He claimed that the campaign for an all-encompassing ban on small-scale mining was misguided and would not only not worsen the situation but also fail to solve the threat.
Although there are thousands of illegal miners who adhere to mining rules, he pointed out that some of them violate the terms of their licenses.
“Yes, it is a crisis which needs to be dealt with but there people out there; not just one or two but several thousands, if not millions, who are not connected to illegal mining so why don’t you leave them out and deal with what is creating the problem?
“That is why I personally will not recommend a [blanket ban on small scale mining] because there are several thousands who are not involved in the kind of thing that has led us here. We should be careful not to proverbially they’d the baby away with the bath water. We have tried it before and it didn’t work,” Mr Ayisi said.
“The solution to illegal mining, if you ask me, 99 per cent is the geological investigations of all the thousands of areas the Commission has designated. So it will take time for us to resolve the problem but we can’t make apologies for [persons mining illegally] on the water bodies. It is illegal so we just have to get rid of them,” he added.
He went on to say that a blanket ban was unsustainable, citing the example of the restriction in 2017 that saw over GH¢2.2 billion realized from gold exports in 2018.
According to him, the current situation of mining in the nation is the result of 30 years of passivity on the part of succeeding governments to sustainably provide a friendly environment for small-scale mining.
In the long run, he said, funding for the Geological Survey Department to conduct an underground mineral survey would be necessary in order to allocate funds to individuals wishing to pursue mining careers.
Furthermore, Mr. Ayisi clarified that Burkinabes and Togolese, who have unreliable technology that incorrectly detects gold beds, have partnered with their Ghanaian colleagues to exacerbate the situation.
He said that certain miners’ trial-and-error method would become obsolete if the Geological Survey Department was given the funding to investigate the usage of gold catchers.
Source: newsthemegh.com