UK Govt Supports Ghana To Fight Illegal Mining 2 min read

The three-year initiative will augment the government’s effort to tackle illegal mining by strengthening community resilience, improving regulation and building the capacity of law enforcement agencies.

A brief ceremony was held at the National Assay Laboratory, located near the Kotoka International Airport, at which the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, and the UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, James Spencer Cleverly, jointly launched the programme.

Context

Since 2017, the government has been implementing a raft of measures to help clamp down on illegal mining, popularly called galamsey.

A ban was placed on all forms of small-scale mining for almost two years until it was lifted in December, 2018.

As part of reforms to stem the tides, the country’s mining laws were reviewed to include more punitive regimes for perpetrators of galamsey.

Among other measures rolled out to tackle the galamsey menace were the military deployments to illegal mining areas, revision of mining laws, community mining scheme, the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme (NAELP), and other law enforcement mechanisms.

Despite these interventions, illegal miners have remained adamant to halting their destructive activities on the environment.

Good addition

Mr Jinapor said the programme would be rolled out in the Ashanti, Western and Savannah regions.

“The objective of the programme is to ensure traceability, enhanced regulation, provision of alternative livelihoods and generally support law enforcement, all targeted at halting galamsey,” he said.

He said a technical team at the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry would work closely with the UK High Commission to ensure the effective implementation of the initiative.

The minister further said the new programme would go a long way to augment the existing measures to help sanitise the small-scale mining sector.

“This initiative will augment the work we are doing and there is the thinking around rationalising and synchronising what we are doing already,” he said.

He stressed that the government would do whatever was right, and within the laws of the country, to ensure that the small-scale mining sector was made more beneficial to citizens.

Mr Cleverly commended the government for the bold steps that had been taken to tackle the galamsey menace head-on.

“I am proud that the UK is working alongside the government to tackle illegal mining and smuggling of gold. It is important to continue to do what is right to ensure that criminality will not thrive,” he said.

Also, the UK’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, stressed the need for the government to do more to protect citizens from the harm emanating from galamsey.

“The environmental impact of unregulated mining is huge, damaging and destructive to agricultural lands that could be put to better use, and must be stopped,” he said.

He gave an assurance that the UK government would remain committed to supporting Ghana to deal with the galamsey menace.