With just four months to the 2020 general elections, illegal small scale miners, popularly known as ‘galamseyers’ in the Western Region, who say they have been disappointed in the government for close to three years now following the ban on their operations, seem to have been given a new chance to get back to their mining business.
This is because, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Kweku Asomah Kyeremeh has within a week supervised the launching of three Community Mining schemes.
First is the Bamianko Community Mines in the Nzema East Municipality, followed by the Abosso Community Mines in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality and the latest is the Ellembele Community Mines.
The District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ellembele, Kwesi Bonzoh is hopeful that the Ellembele Community Mines will create jobs for youth in the area.
He told Citi News, the timing of the launching is not because of votes.
“Somebody might say it is a few months to the elections, but there is life after the election. So what we are giving them today goes beyond the elections. This is a process that we initiated two years ago. Anybody who has gone through the process of acquiring a concession from the Mineral Commission knows that it does not take a day. They have a concession covering over six square kilometres.”
The Ellembele DCE, however, told Citi News the Community Mines would reduce unemployment in the area.
“Today marks the launching of the Ellembele District Community Mines. Basically, it is about giving an opportunity to the youth, especially those who have previously been involved in illegal mining to now do responsible mining. We have in the past two years trained over 200 of them in responsible mining at the University of Mines and Technology at Tarkwa. Again, over the last two years, we have engaged the Minerals Commission and gone through the processes and duly acquired concessions on which they can mine, hence the Minister has officially launched the Community Mining Scheme in Ellembele.”
“From here, we are going to operationalize it on the ground together with the Chief and Assembly members. As the name connotes, it’s community mining which is owned by the community and we expect the community to invest in it so they can have maximized benefits. As you can see the youth are very happy and there is a lot of hope that the unemployment situation in this district will be abated”, he added.
The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Kweku Asomah Kyeremeh who launched the Ellembele Community Mines Scheme at Nkroful said it is only in fulfilment of a campaign promise.
He said each community mine can employ thousands but cautioned beneficiaries of the scheme to operate with the best environmental practices or risk losing their licenses.
“This Community Mine we are launching today can employee about 20,000 people in addition to the about 10,000 support service providers like food sellers. This all fits into the employment creation promise made by this government while in opposition, hence just today 30,000 people are getting employment because of the community mines. This is also to empower locals to play a role in their mineral resources utilization. We, however, plead that as we launch the community mine today, let us follow the rules that guide it. We should respect the created buffer zones where mining cannot take place including operating in water bodies to avoid their pollution. Again, this community Mining is reserved for Ghanaians and all your machines must be registered with the Minerals Commission. Failure to do this would attract penalties.”
A local, Ntia Kwando, expressed anticipated benefits from Community Mines.
“It is a big lift to the youth of Ellembele and we have been waiting for this for a very long time. Since the Scheme came into being, the youth also came together to fight for this and we know it is going to change a lot of things in this community and we are happy it will be added to our economic lives. We promise to also follow the regulations.”
The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah who also graced the occasion said the community Mines would add a lot to the local economy as the small scale mining sector alone currently contribute about 42 percent to Ghana’s total Gold output and could even go up if more community Mines is introduced.