New technology for small-scale miners

Accra, Nov 17, GNA - A technology aimed at helping small-scale miners to extract gold without polluting the environment has been specially formulated for Ghana by a United States of America based entrepreneur.

Mr Albert Conti, an Engineer cum Attorney, said the environmentally friendly extraction and recovery system known, as the Haber Gold Process (HGP) would help the small-scale miners and galamsey operators to stop using mercury and cyanide, which were not environmentally friendly. Addressing a press conference in Accra, Mr Conti said Norman Haber, Chairman of the Haber Incoporated Company based in the USA, discovered the chemical system for the hydrometallurgical extraction of gold from its ore.

Mr Conti said the new technology which was being worked on for Ghana would help the miners to address extreme poverty because the gold would be extracted at a faster rate, achieving 99 per cent recovery rate, with little labour compared to the methods that were formerly used. He said the HGP product was certified in Ghana by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in line with other foreign institutions as "having positive results for small scale miners". Demonstrating the use of the HGP to journalists, Mr Conti said the HGP was non-toxic, and people within the mining communities could live harmoniously with the HGP effluent after the extraction process. But he was quick to add that "for now the Company has a retention tank that would be used to collect all effluent to ensure that it did not go into the environment.

He demonstrated the non-toxicity of the chemical, by mixing it with a bottle of mineral water and drinking it thereafter. He said the association of small-scale miners in the Western Region has already welcomed the new method.