By : Francis Whajah
The Minerals Commission will soon begin the process of registering mining excavators with tracking devices.
The tracking devices will allow the commission to monitor the movement of the excavators when they move out the area designated for them to mine
A Principal Officer at the commission, Jerry Ahadje says this has become necessary because small scale miners often going beyond their approved areas of mining and mine illegally in other unapproved areas causing degradation to the environment as well as pollution of water bodies
THE SITUATION NOW
Most small scale miners according to the commission import excavators into the country and are conveyed directly to their mining sites. The commission says because small scale miners do not carry out seismic activities to determine the directional locations of the mineral resources, they are often tempted to move excavators over vast area of lands digging and destroying properties and natural resources.
The tracking device according to the commission will have the ability to stop the machine from operating if it goes beyond its boundaries
The commission is hopeful that this will help solve the myriad of problems confronting communities from the activities of illegal mining.
Pollution of water bodies, destruction of farms and the non reclamation of lands are some of the problems being meted out to communities surrounded by small scale mining.
But David Nicole Sey, who owns several mining concessions, says the implementation of the policy is not feasible. He questioned how the commission would implement such a policy when some of the earth moving equipments are usually rented out to small scale miners and may not necessarily belong to one mining firm
He rather wants institutions such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Minerals Commission and the Ghana Police Service to effectively implement the laws against illegal mining in Ghana. He believes that is the only way illegal mining will come to an end
Source: http://radiomaxxonline.com/small-scale-miners-downplay-feasibilty-of-new-policy-by-minerals-commission/#.VsCouZ8yCqY.gmail
