Mrs Owusu-Koranteng addressing the gathering
WACAM, leading mining rights Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has launched a document to push for a review of the existing mining laws in the country.
According to WACAM, the current regulatory standards rather serve the interests of mining companies and those in the extractive sector to the detriment of the country.
The NGO stressed the need to reassess the situation immediately.
“Mining problems have engulfed our nation. We have mined in rivers, mountains, cemeteries, sacred groves, forest reserves and displaced more than 60,000 landlords who have many dependants, yet we have nothing substantial to show for the extreme suffering mining operations have inflicted on our people,” Hannah Owusu-Koranteng, Associate Executive Director of WACAM, said at the launch on Tuesday.
The document titled: Sample Minerals and Mining Bill, was developed mainly by WACAM in collaboration with the Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) and Centre for Environmental Impact Assessment (CEIA).
Mrs. Owusu-Koranteng said it was not in doubt that Ghana attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the mining sector through a liberal mining regulatory regime but the government failed to protect the environment, community livelihoods, water bodies, protected areas.
“The campaign of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) on the inadequacies on the PNDCL 153 resulted in some cosmetic reforms which gave birth to the Minerals and Mining Act, 703, Act 2006,” she added.
“This act has woefully failed to protect the interests of the vulnerable communities.”
She said for instance that royalty rates which was 3 percent to 12 percent of total volume of the mineral produced in the PNDCL 153 was reduced to a sliding scale of 3 percent to 6 percent in the existing Minerals and Mining Act, Act 703, saying “this gave all the mining companies the opportunities to pay the lowest royalty rate of 3 percent until it was revised to 5 percent flat rate in response to campaign of NGOs which is even inadequate.”
She said the widespread environmental degradation, pollution of almost every water body and the disruption of farming activities as a result of both large and small-scale mining is going to have dire consequences for Ghana very soon.
WACAM therefore made key suggestions to the government through parliament, seeking to get the house to push for stricter mining laws that would serve the interests of both the investor and the country.
She said the act is suggesting a ‘No Go Zones’ to ensure total protection of reserved forests from mining activities, free period and informed consent from the communities even before exploratory activities, improved human rights provisions and the payment of royalties of about 10 percent.
“The government clearly looks at the fiscal benefits and neglect concerns of the communities who are severely affected. We are dealing with a resource that is running out fast and the longer we delay the more Ghana is hurting itself,” she declared.
Ambassdor Elkanah Odembe, a former Kenyan diplomat, who chaired the event, said the changing circumstances in the Ghanaian mining landscape calls for urgent review of the laws regulating the sector.
By William Yaw Owusu