Minerals Commission charged to curb ‘galamsey’ menace

The Minerals Commission has been charged to formulate and roll-out a proactive, aggressive communications strategy that will actively engage stakeholders to forge an integrated approach in the fight against illegal small-scale mining menace in the country’s mining communities.

“There’s an urgent need to build the requisite partnership to arrest the growing incidence of illegal small-scale mining activities in the country’s mining sector.

“In spite of the mounting outcry against this menace, stakeholders -- particularly security agencies and traditional leaders -- have remained apathetic and in some instances even continued to connive with illegal operators to degrade the environment with impunity,” said the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources Mr. Mike Hammah at a forum in Accra. 

He added: “Since local communities and the districts assemblies are in direct contact with these illegal operators, they could be conscientised through this strategy to play the role of ‘change agents’ in the campaign against galamsey”

Mr. Hammah emphasised an urgent need to review the nation’s legislation which gives discretionary powers to return equipment impounded from galamsey operators; adding that such equipment should be sold and the proceeds used to restore the environment degraded by illegal miners.

“Such measures would constitute a major deterrent and make ‘galamsey’ a high-risk venture.”

The country’s laws stipulate that foreign companies are only allowed to work on large, open-pit mining operations.

But there is evidence that Chinese entrepreneurs are also illegally controlling small-scale operations behind the scenes, typically through a local intermediary.

The influx of these Chinese immigrants into the country’s small-scale mining sector, reserved for Ghanaians, has now become a national crisis. Approximately 30,000 Chinese nationals now live and work in Ghana, according to official figures.

Dr. Benjamin Aryee, Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Commission, told the Business & Financial Times (B&FT): “The situation has necessitated the establishment of a national task-force -- comprising National Security, Ghana Immigration Service, Minerals Commission, Chiefs, and the Municipal and District Chief Executives of the mining communities -- which has been tasked to monitor what is happening and try to stem it as quickly as possible.

“We are working with the security agencies, but beyond them we are as well collaborating with the local authorities and the Assemblies, because they are the key stakeholders as the problem has now become a national concern.”

Illegal small-scale mining activities have always resulted in the encroachment on large tracts of community land, depriving poor and marginalised communities of their land surface rights. This has deprived many communities of their sources of livelihood. 

The appropriation of local communities’ lands for mining has often engendered social upheavals and adversely impacted on the routine livelihood activities of those communities. 

Such social upheavals are commonplace in communities affected by mining projects in the country. The growing incidence of conflicts between mining communities and their chiefs on one hand, and the mining companies on the other, echoes the growing concerns about mining sector effects.