President Akufo-Addo enquiring about the operations of the Mercury-Free Mineral Processing Technologies from Martha Amoako at the commissioning. Looking on is Samuel Abu Jinapor
PRESIDENT AKUFO-Addo yesterday commissioned one hundred new gold processing equipment called ‘gold katchas’ at the Independence Square in Accra.
The introduction of the new equipment is to help sanitise Ghana’s artisanal, small, medium and large-scale mining industry. It can process sand, clay and hard rock.
The President, in a speech, assured stakeholders in the small scale mining industry that his administration was committed to ensuring clean mining in the country, contrary to claims by some sections of society that his administration was against the small scale mining, popularly known as ‘galamsey’.
According to him, his administration owed the current and future generation of Ghanaians a duty to ensure responsible mining to protect the country’s water bodies and natural resources.
That, he said, was because the small-scale mining industry was an important contributor to the nation’s revenue generation efforts.
“According to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), in the past seven years other than in 2014, the mining sector has provided the largest tax receipts. Small scale mining’s contribution to the growth of this sector has been incremental since its regularisation in 1989, and today, small scale mining accounts for some 40% of our gold exports and provides job opportunities and sources of livelihood and income for many Ghanaians,” he explained.
Charge
In spite of its major revenue contribution, the President observed that “it is also not a secret that the sector has been unfortunately, a major vehicle of environmental pollution and land degradation, including the threat posed to life by the use of mercury in the recovery of gold and its subsequent release into the eco-system.”
“The solution to this however, cannot be, cannot lie, in banning small scale mining which has been with us since time immemorial,” President Akufo-Addo said.
He said his administration’s agenda “is to ensure that mining is carried out in a responsible manner as was done by our ancestors and in line with international best practices and conventions across all levels of operation.”
“This will in addition to eliminating the associated negative practices, ensure that small scale mining supports government’s drive to optimise the earning from mining in pursuit of development, progress and prosperity for all Ghanaians,” President Akufo-Addo added.
On his part, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, indicated that many small-scale miners relied on mercury to extract gold from ore, a practice he said “has serious environmental and health impacts on communities in which they are used.”
Apart from contaminating water bodies and destroying aquatic life, he noted that the high exposure to mercury by inhalation could result in damage to the nervous, digestive and immune systems.
“In children, for example, exposure to mercury can cause physical and mental disabilities. The experts have warned of dire consequences if urgent action is not taken to eliminate the use of mercury in small scale mining,” he warned.
“It is for this reason that the world adopted the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which Ghana ratified on March 23, 2017, under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo,” Jinapor noted.
Under the Convention, state parties are to take measures to reduce, and, where feasible, eliminate the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale mining.
It is to achieve such aims that the gold katchas have been manufactured to specifically remediate mercury contaminated areas, recovering significant quantities of gold in the process.
“Scrubbing, crushing and milling happens at the same time as the concentrator washes the ore and recovers both fine and coarse gold.
“The mining plants have incredible level of efficiency and has a capacity that ranges from as little as 1.5-3 throughput per hour (3tph) through to 300 throughput per hour (300tph).
“These also have high recovery rate (90%+ gravity recoverable gold) compared with the other methods that recover just about 30-35% of gold,” he said.
BY Charles Takyi-Boadu