ACEP wants policy framework established for iron ore extraction

The African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) is advocating the establishment of a policy framework for the extraction of iron ore in the country.

The call comes on the back of the lack of a comprehensive framework, guiding the extraction of the other minerals, including gold, diamond and manganese in Ghana.

Ghana recently discovered large deposits of iron ore in the northern part of the country, a portion of which has been leveraged in the controversial 19-billion-dollar Chinese loan accessed by the vice president.

Currently, the country is also fighting illegal mining over what experts say is the lack of policy guidelines to regulate the operations of miners in Ghana.

ACEP has thus warned that if the extraction of iron ore is not regulated by laid down guidelines, it would become a menace like galamsey.

Its executive director, Ben Boakye, said: “We want to see what policy recommendations we can give to government to mine the ore purposefully, we need the policy to ensure that the communities who will be affected are catered for, so that we don’t come back to look for solutions after the entire environment has been destroyed”.

Consequently, he has advocated a strict enforcement of the existing mining laws, to ensure purposeful mining.

“We want government to ensure that the already existing laws on mining are enforced. We can start from there”, he said.