MP for Amenfi East wants mining laws strengthened

Page 44, Nov 19, 2009
Story: Emmanuel Adu-Gyamerah

THE Member of Parliament (MP) for Amenfi East, Mr Joseph Boahen Aidoo, has advocated strengthening of the country’s mining laws to encourage the use of machinery and equipment in the small-scale mining sector.
He noted that it was only through such a situation that one could make it impracticable for the use of child labour and eliminate all forms of women labour in unprotected mining pits.
“The convoluted process of registration and licensing of small-scale mining entities must be simplified and straightened, so as to ease the way for Ghanaians who want to do legitimate business in gold and diamond,” the MP stated.
Mr Aidoo made these suggestions in a statement in Parliament on the Dompuase, the MP’s constituency, galamsey tragedy in which 15 women were trapped to death in a mining pit.
The MP said if such measures were adopted, the galamsey phenomenon would be eliminated while the work of the artisanal miners could be monitored and controlled by state institutions and forced to comply with safety measures.
He said though galamsey accidents occurred on a regular basis across the country unreported, never had a calamitous event of such a proportion involving so many women casualties happened in the history of the country.
Mr Aidoo explained that almost all the deceased women were single parents with two to five children and had poor backgrounds.
He stated that he had a problem with the existing law on minerals and mining, explaining that the law made it rather difficult for Ghanaians who wanted to go into gold mining.
Mr Aidoo said to qualify for a mining licence, the prospective individual, group or company would have to show proof that the area desired to be mined had undergone prospecting, adding that the cost of a single prospecting ranged from as low as $1 million to over $10 million.
He said it was for that reason that almost all the prospected areas were in the hands of multi-national companies, explaining that the few Ghanaians who secured licences for small-scale mining were generally fronting for foreigners.
The MP stated that there was a little difference between the small-scale miners and the galamsey miners, saying that the thin distinction was that one was licensed and had the law on its side, while the other had the law against it.
However, Mr Aidoo explained that their scale, effect and mode of operation were the same, and called for the massage of the law in order to remove that seemingly exclusivity against Ghanaians who would want to go into the mining of gold and diamond.
Contributing to the statement, the MP for Sekondi, Papa Owusu Ankomah, also called for a change in policy to make to enable owners of lands to benefit from resources, such as gold and mining to eliminate the perennial problems associated with the mining industry.
In her contribution, the Minister for Women and Children, Ms Akua Sena Dansua, noted that men were becoming increasingly irresponsible, and that had forced some women to do any form of job in order to cater for their children.
She called on irresponsible fathers to be alive to their responsibilities in order not force women to do jobs that would eventually send them to their graves.