Small-scale miners push for bigger concessions

Small-scale miners have asked government to speedily review procedures in allocating mining concessions in the country, as the current measures favour large-scale companies.

The miners say government has wrongly prioritised major suitable mining areas to large-scale mining companies for minerals exploration, depriving prospective small-scale miners from having access to lands.

“We think that the allocation of the concessions was not properly done. Currently, what we are proposing is that we want government to take a second look and review all the various blockings and the concession allocations,” Edward Kwasi Akuoko, Director Policy & Research, Artisanal and Small Scale Mining Africa-Network (ASMAN), told B&FT in an interview.

In 2011, government in consultation with the Minerals Commission pledged to designate areas to be reserved for small-scale mining activity based on technical and financial viability.

The Minerals Commission was to develop standardised procedures, including adequate advance notice and community representation in deliberations leading to the designation of areas.

Small-scale mining in the country is defined to include the exploitation of mineral deposits using fairly rudimentary implements at low levels of production, and with minimal capital investment.

Available checks estimate that over one million people are involved directly in small-scale mining, and over a million people benefit directly or indirectly from this activity.

In 2012, gold production from the activities of small-scale miners from both legal and illegal sources contributed approximately 800,000 metric tonnes, which is 28 percent of total gold production in the country.

Mr. Akuoko complained that the few areas with viable prospects for mining exploration activities have all been granted to the large-scale mining companies.

He said large-scale mining companies, which are very few with approximately 40 in the country’s mining industry, are holding on to about 70 percent of the mineable land.

“Most of them are not even working on the lands and just keeping them. This is what is depriving prospective small-scale miners of having access to land.

“At the moment there are a lot of prospective small-scale miners who have applied for land, and they are not getting licence, that’s the main problem on the ground. That is why the small-scale menace is becoming prevalent in the country,” he said.

Mr. Akuoko further argued: “A mining company can acquire an over-300 kilometre square concession, meanwhile these small-scale miners who are indigenes that don’t need much large land size to make maximum use cannot get access to the lands.

“When people apply for licences for small-scale mining concessions they don’t get the land to work on.”

Dr. Toni Aubynn, Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Commission, has vowed to position the small-scale mining industry to become efficient, indigenous and self-reliant.

“Government will work with, and encourage, mining companies to collaborate and give support to small-scale miners where it can be established that this will be in the mutual interest of the parties,” he said.

A London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) report on artisanal/small-scale mining has said small-scale mining produces about 85 percent of the world’s gemstones and 20-25 percent of all the gold. It also provides jobs and incomes for 20 to 30 million of the world’s poorest people, and supports the livelihoods of five times that number.

The report stated that artisanal/small-scale mining employs 10 times more people than large-scale mining. But it takes place in very remote areas, usually involves poor and vulnerable people -- including women and children -- and is renowned for severe pollution and harsh working conditions.