Fight against galamsey continues – Illegal miners warned

Deputy Minister for Information, Pius Hadzide has reiterated government’s commitment to continue the fight against illegal mining.

The Minister at a press briefing in Accra, Sunday said, the lifted ban which takes effect on Monday, December 17th is only to allow the 900 trained small scale miners to resume work.

“Galamsey fight continues and only validated miners can resume tomorrow, Monday, the fight remains in full force,” he said.

According to him, government is rolling out a comprehensive policy framework for mining.

He said, the new framework allows the 900 validated miners to resume work under a strict a supervisor and monitoring regime.

“This is to ensure that even for them, resort is not made to irresponsible or even illegal mining methods” he said.

The Deputy Minister said, a first set of about 3,000 galamsey miners will be grouped under the community mining model and given proper concession to also mine under similar regulations.

Explaining further, he said “all other former illegal miners who desire to mine again must also apply, be trained and allocated a proper concession to mine in accordance with the policy framework” he noted.

Pius Hadzide said, a list of validated miners will be published in the dailies and on the notice boards on MMDAs.

Quoting the Chairman of the inter-ministerial committee, the Deputy Minister said “there should therefore be no logical reason why any person in Ghana should engage in illegal mining”.

He said, people who want to mine must follow the stipulated protocol and avoid a conflict with the law.

“Illegal small-scale mining which we refer to as galamsey remains illegal and will not be countenance”.