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Ghana is making positive progress in the fight against illegal mining in the country.
At a press conference informing the media of what the government had done so far in the fight against illegal mining on Thursday, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr. Kwaku Asomah-Kyeremeh, said the ministry had confiscated 300 excavators banned from importing excavators.
He added that regular reporting on visible Galamsey deaths in the media landscape was now a thing of the past, as miners were required to abide by mining industry standards while suppressing the activities of illegal groups.
Mr. Kyeremeh said that people still engaged in illegal mining activities were arrested and brought to justice, including deportation if the perpetrators were foreign nationals.
According to him, the measures introduced were intended to bring the crisis to a manageable level, while the institutions in charge of the sector were being given the power to take over the management of the sector.
In addition, the ministry also builds capacity of artisbad miners through structured programs.
The minister noted that a more permanent approach to resolving the illegal mining threat was to use the legal framework of the Multisectoral Integrated Mining Project (MMIP), a five-year project with a budget of $ 200 million. US. A project evaluation and implementation document has been prepared for this purpose.
He believed that the government's commitment to combat illegal mining while streamlining the management of the small-scale mining sub-sector, particularly in the broader mining sector, was in good shape. way and that the result would be clear once the project started.
In response to the government's protection of Chinese illegal miner Aisha Huang, Kyeremeh said the government has not sacrificed it for the Sino Hydro loan, as the loan is a separate problem from illegal mining activities.
Regarding the issue of the expulsion of illegal foreign minors, the minister added that not all perpetrators of these acts were expelled, some of them being prosecuted in the courts districts and districts of different mining areas.
He denied calls from some groups for the dissolution of the Interministerial Committee on Mining, saying the mining sector was vast and needed more resources to deal with certain issues. The committee, he said, was not created in a vacuum, but as a result of environmental degradation and the destruction of water bodies.
Source: ISD (Chantal Aidoo)
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