Bole, (N/R), Dec. 2, – Government
is poised to spend 100 million dollars to reclaim lands destroyed by activities
of illegal miners in the country through the Multi-sectorial Mining Integrated
Project (MMIP).
The five-year project is an
initiative of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR) aimed at
combating ‘galamsey’ and also sanitizing the artisanal small scale miners in
the country.
Dr. Isaac Karikari, the Project
Lead made this known during the Media Coalition Against Galamsey (MCAG)/National
Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) 6th Town Hall Meeting in Bole in the
Northern Region.
Components of MMIP included; the
reclamation and dredging of affected rivers, a review of legal framework with
regards to the issuing of license and provision of alternative livelihoods for
people engaged in ‘galamsey’ among others, he said.
The MMIP Lead hinted that
government had started signing Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with
collaborators and also entering into Public Private Partnership (PPP) agreements
through which the project would be funded.
He explained that the
collaborators were companies who had their own money and were doing something
similar to what the Ministry was doing while the PPP were organisations with
their own funding but wanted government to meet them half way by allowing them
to mine and use the money to reclaim the land.
Dr. Karikari said doing
reclamation was expensive but assured that the amount would be raised from the
gold that would be gotten during the processes leading to the reclamation of
the lands.
Dr Anthony A. Duah, Hydrologist
and a Representative of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research of
the Water Research Institute in a presentation titled “Effects of Galamsey on
the Environment” noted that Ghana’s available water resources were enough
compared to its current population.
He said the country’s water
resources were however threatened by activities of illegal miners, improper
solid and liquid waste disposal, poor land use practices, and sand winning as well
as deforestation activities.
Dr Duah highlighted that
generally, destruction of the environment caused by mining activities had
reached alarming proportions and needed to be controlled to avoid the negative
impact of inadequate water supply, poor water quality, loss of aquatic life and
loss of recreation.
He said the moratorium placed on
small scale mining by the government was good, saying since then turbidity
levels of water bodies had been declining drastically, and urged all to come on
board to help stop ‘galamsey’ in the country.
Madam Veronica Alele Heming, Bole
District Chief Executive said ‘galamsey’ was a canker that successive
governments tried to overcome without maximum success and commended the MCAG
for stepping up the campaign by the government to end or minimise the practice.
“The effects of ‘galamsey’ are
detrimental to our survival as a people. I am therefore appealing to those who
genuinely wish to do small scale mining to seek for appropriate licenses so
that their mining activities could be rightly monitored to avoid destruction of
the environment and the water bodies”, the DCE urged.
GNA
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