STATISTICS available to Today Minerals and Mining Matters indicate that irresponsible mining activities by the fifty (50) multinational mining companies in the country over the past three decades have displaced a total of about one hundred thousand (100,000) livelihoods and landlords in mining communities.
The displacement of many livelihoods and landlords, Today Minerals and Mining Matters gathered was as a result of multinational mining companies undertaking surface mining operations without recourse to the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) that regulates their activities.
In an interview members and leaders of some civil society organisations (CSOs) stated that the inability of successive governments and political leaders to pass strong laws to regulate irresponsible mining activities of these mining companies had resulted in the wanton pollution of many water bodies, the exacerbation of poverty in mining communities and destruction of forest reserves.
The CSOs, particularly Wacam, a premier community based human rights and environmental mining advocacy NGO in Ghana, pointed out that the irresponsible mining activities in the country over the past three decades have brought about detrimental effects on the lives and the development of the country.
They indicated that the country had been too flexible with its mining regulatory laws governing mining activities which has paved way for many investors into the country and thus, “we are faced with this irresponsible mining canker.” It is in the wake of this that the CSOs condemned the assumption that because the large multinational mining companies were regulated, their activities do not desecrate the environment and water bodies. According to them, all irresponsible mining activities must be regarded as “galamsey,” whether large or small scale mining company.
They added that today, “we are being faced with a lot of challenges like pollution of rivers, destruction of the environment and creating serious social and environmental problems, thanks to irresponsible mining activities.” They thus called on media personnel and like-minded stakeholders to be able to ensure there was sanity in the mining sector through accurate recommendations that would deeply feed into government’s action policies.
They went on to asserted that it was about time journalists woke up and widened their scope in the fight against illegal mining in the country which was destroying the environment and dwindling the economic activities.
Story: Freeman Awlesu Koryekpor
Writer’s email freeman.koryekpor@todaygh.com