I won't chase away miners with Operation Vanguard, Galamstop - Mahama

Former President john Dramani Mahama has said he will not unleash Operation Vanguard and the Galamstop operation to chase away small scale miners, should he be voted as President.

“Of course we don’t want them dying in pits, and so we need to teach them how to do it safely, and we have the technology. Ghana has some of the most high numbers of trained Geologists and mining safety, because we have a dedicated university. People come from outside to UMaT to come and train and go back to their countries to work in the mining industry. We have them, hundreds of them, let’s employ them and let them work with these young boys and teach them how to do the mining properly,” he said in an interview on Saturday.

The government set up the Galamstop to complement the efforts of the Operation Vanguard team in fighting illegal mining popularly known as ‘galamsey’, that rapidly desecrated portions of the country’s rich vegetation cover and polluted water bodies.

The Flagbearer of the largest opposition NDC reiterating the NDC’s concerns on the small scale mining industry indicated that rather some regulations would be made under a future NDC government to ensure that miners do not destroy the environment with their activities.

He stated that he’ll introduce new laws that will revamp mining activities and ensure more profitability and revenue for national development.

“I think our approach to it has been wrong. Yes, it has resulted in devastation of the environment, but that is not the reason to throw the baby away with the bathwater. And that is why I’m saying that if we regulate it better, we should be able to create a lot of jobs for young people,” he added.