The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Kwaku Asomah-cheremeh, has assured that the Community Mining Scheme will not be abolished after the December 7, 2020 Elections.
He gave the assurance at the Akrokeri Community Mining site on Monday, November 2, 2020.
That was after a number of miners had raised concerns to him about former President John Mahama suggesting to replace the Community Mining Scheme with “cooperative mining.”
While introducing his running mate to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Mr Mahama pledged to return all seized mining excavators to small scale miners.
The former President pledged to introduce cooperative mining when elected come December 7, 2020.
“Lately it looks like we’re being selective, if you don’t belong to a certain party, they take away your concession. They have taken away people’s excavators to give to party members to work. The NDC is, however, saying that, we stand for social justice, so God willing when we come back into power, we’ll correct all these mistakes, we’ll retrieve the concessions and give them back to the rightful owners. We’ll make laws such that the country will benefit from the mining without destroying our lands and water bodies,” Mr Mahama said.
“We’ll introduce cooperative mining so that if these miners have cooperative groups, we’ll get mining safety officers to ensure that they’re doing things right to ensure that they don’t destroy the land in the process. Whatever, it is they make, they’ll save it, they’ll use the resources to ensure that the land is restored. We’ll plant trees on those lands and repay their monies. If they don’t do that, we’ll use their monies to pay for a bulldozer to clear the place and the people who help restore the land,” the former President stated.
“There are lots of things we can do to ensure that the country benefits from mining. God blessed us with it so it is pointless using military men to chase these youth to kill them. So as for us, we’ll make new laws to ensure development in our country,” Mr Mahama said.
Ignore
But Mr. Asomah-cheremeh urged the miners to disregard suggestions that the Community Mining Scheme will be abolished.
He said the Scheme has come to stay.
By Melvin Tarlue