OccupyGhana® has called for the full enforcement of the mining law which provides for serious punishment for illegal mining.
According to the pressure group, all the efforts to end illegal mining will not achieve anything until the law enforcement agencies resolve to simply enforce the law.
“If the security agencies make arrests and the law is not applied, it weakens their resolve and says to all that we are not serious about ending this menace. And the judiciary should need no encouragement to try cases with dispatch so that Ghanaians can see results in real time. It cannot be business as usual,” it said.
The group made the appeal after it took notice of pictures and films in which equipment allegedly being used in Galamsey operations and apparently seized by security officials, have been set on fire.
The group said the act was a brazen illegality that will only exacerbate the situation and not help in the fight against Galamsey.
It said the legal provision is that equipment used in any illegal mining activity is required to be first seized and kept in police custody adding that when the person using the equipment for the illegal mining activity is convicted, the court will order the forfeiture of the equipment to the state.
“Then the Minister has 60 days within which to allocate the equipment to a state institution. There is absolutely no legal room for simply torching the equipment. It is illegal and must stop forthwith,” it added.
It reiterated that per the Mining Act there is a fine and imprisonment between 15 and 25 years for illegal mining crimes, including buying or selling minerals without a licence or authority, mining in breach of the law; abetting any breach of the mining law; contracting a non-Ghanaian to provide mining support services; abetting the breach of the mining laws by a foreigner; fabricating or manufacturing floating platforms or other equipment to be used for mining in our water bodies; and providing an excavator for an illegal mining operation.
“The Act further provides that a non-Ghanaian who illegally mines or abets illegal mining attracts a large fine and imprisonment between 20 and 25 years, and shall be deported after serving the sentence,” it said.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri