The government has challenged the former Mahama administration to present its policy on alternative livelihood for illegal miners.
Former President John Mahama who was assessing the fight against illegal mining during the National Democratic Congress (NDC’s) unity walk in Kumasi on Saturday described government’s approach in the crusade as counterproductive.
“…it is true that if we don’t do something about it, it will destroy the environment. But we need to apply wisdom. Because we’ve chased young people involved in illegal small-scale mining with soldiers in the past in this country, but it didn’t work.”
Speaking to Citi News, the Lands Minister, John Peter Amewu who took a swipe at the former president said Mr Mahama is only disingenuous. “He ruled this country for a number of years at the peak of galamsey, he has not been able to produce a single paper on sanitization the small-scale mining. Today you mount a platform and tell Ghanaians, I am so much disappointed,”he said.
He stated that former President John Mahama failed Ghanaians is finding a proper strategy to combat galamsey, and that accounted for his loss of the presidential elections in 2016.
Amewu assured Ghanaians that the Multilateral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP) is the way forward in fighting galamsey.
“Multilateral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP) will be launched very soon, the document has been outlaid, we are waiting on the president to return, as soon as he get back, this document is going to be launched and that is the way forward,” he said.
The Government last year July proposed a solution to ending the illegal mining menace also known as galamsey in the country will cost about $150 million.
This was captured in the much-hyped Multilateral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP) document put together by the governing New Patriotic Party in its anti-galamsey efforts.
In the document, the amount is supposed to be financed by statutory funds such as the Mineral Development Fund and Annual Budgetary allocation from Government.
Other sources of funding include partnerships with Diplomatic Missions (Funding/Technical Support), Civil Societies, Corporate bodies and other funding organizations through PPP [Public Private Partnership] arrangements among others.
The government through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources as part of activities to stop the menace, has temporarily placed a ban on the issuance of licenses for small-scale mining and directed all illegal miners to cease the practice and evacuate from the various sites.
50% of the amount is expected to come from funding partners, 20% from Government of Ghana, 20% from PPP and rest of the 10% from corporate bodies.
Your government had no strategy to tackle galamsey – Amewu to Mahama
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