John Peter Amewu (left) Rockson Bukari (middle) and Director of Nyenyeya Mining Company (right)
Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu has assured that, Government has no bad intention against foreign nationals, especially the Chinese working and wishing to work in Ghana and in any sector of the economy.
“What we want is that, everyone, including Ghanaians who are involved in any kind of legitimate business, especially mining, to follow the laid down procedures as well as the rules and regulations governing the business. Once you are doing the right thing, you have no problem with government,” he stressed.
The Lands and Natural Resources Minister gave the assurance at Gbane, a mining community in the Talensi District in the Upper East Region. He paid a working visit to the area together with some officials from his Ministry as part of monitoring the level of compliance with the ban on all forms of mining activities across the country. Also among the Minister’s delegation, was the Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Ayine Bukari.
Mr Amewu’s assurance comes at a time the public holds the view that, the “war” against illegal mining, was a deliberate fight against Chinese and poor Ghanaian youth involved in mining.
It’s been over four months since the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources started a campaign against illegal mining across the country and so far, so much has been achieved, even though there are still some challenges that need to be overcome for the country to achieve greater sanity in the mining sector.
Mr John Peter Amewu’s visit was the first, since the ban. He took the opportunity to visit a Chinese company, Shanxi Mining which was also affected by the ban to familiarize himself with their operations in the area.
Briefing the Minister, the Public Relations Officer of Shanxi Mining, Maxwell Womah, appealed to the Minister to lift the ban on their operations, because a lot of resources had been invested since they started operations in 2008.
According to him, about 600 Ghanaian workers are at home without any livelihood and if the ban is lifted, their jobs will be restored. He assured the Minister that, the Company will continue to comply with safety and best practices in the industry.
Responding to Shanxi’s pleas, Mr Amewu said even though Shanxi is serving two small scale companies, it has the capacity to go into large scale mining and will table their request before all stakeholders for the way forward.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Ayine Bukari, hinted that, he will consult the Regional Security Council to set up a local Task Force to seal all illegal pits in the Gbane community and also bring all illegal miners together to form cooperatives, so as to curb the galamsey menace.
The two Ministers and their teams also visited Cassius Mining Company, a mining company which is currently at the prospecting stage in the Gbane community.
From: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Gbane