Amend Minerals and Mining Act, make comprehensive regulations - CEPIL

The Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) has called for the amendment of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) and to make comprehensive regulations to guide its implementation.

It said the regulations in the Minerals Income Investment Fund Act (MIIF) must include specific provisions that mandated companies to give employment quota for Persons with Disability (PWDs) especially in areas where they had capacity to perform.

Mr Alhassan Iddrisu, a Lawyer and Legal Advocate at CEPIL, made the call during an engagement with the Blind Union of Ghana (GBU) with support from OXFAM Ghana, to present a Policy Brief on Addressing gaps and human rights violations in Ghana’s mining sector in Braille form.

The policy brief is part of the FAIR for ALL (PvP) project which highlights key challenges bedeviling the cocoa-mining sector value chain offering policy proposals to contribute towards addressing the challenges.

Broadly, it seeks to contribute to a world in which global value chains serve people and the planet before profit, where people benefit fairly from value chains and ensure that the benefits of resources are equally distributed.

Mr Iddrisu said in the entire body of the MIIF regulations, there were no mention of provisions for disabilities and how to ensure the inclusiveness of the PWDs in the mining sector value chain.

He said the MIIF was established as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with the mandate to manage the equity interest of Ghana in mining companies and receive dividends from these equity interests, to receive minerals royalties and other related income due the Republic.

It was also to provide for the management and investment of funds.

The Legal Advocate said the Policy Brief proposed that an amendment be made to the MIIF Act that ensured a dedicated share of the profits from the investment of the fund was committed to addressing poverty and other livelihood diversification projects in the mining – affected communities.

That, the Lawyer said, should complement interventions initiated under the Minerals Development Fund (MDF) in mining communities.

 Mr Iddrisu said protecting and promoting the rights of persons living in extractive communities should be a priority since it could derail the nation’s effort at maximising benefits from the extractive resources.

He said the country had failed to harness its natural resources efficiently to spur economic growth despite decades of exploitation.

The Lawyer partly attributed that to inefficient resource governance and wrong priorities of the Government regarding the extractive sector.

Mr Peter Obeng-Asamoah, Executive Director, GBU, said the first step for one to fight and demand for rights was to know those rights.

‘‘…Most of us did not have an inkling about mining, energy and the issues. It was when CEPIL stepped in and they began to give us that information and even went a step further to put it in accessible format to enable us to read it,” he stated.

Mr Obeng-Asamoah said the series of engagements with CEPIL enlightened them about happenings in the mining sector and the exclusion of PWDs in the value chain.

The Executive Director commended CEPIL for support in the protection of their rights.