The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor, has maintained that burning excavators used in illegal small-scale mining known in the local parlance as “galamsey” is the best option for the government.
The comment of the Minister on January 18, 2022 during an interview with Ghana Television (GTV) monitored by Angelonline.com.gh, came in reaction to a question of whether there was an alternative solution to the decision of government in that regard.
It follows concerns some sections of the public have raised in an attempt to convince the government to choose a more desirable and fitting solution to the problem bedevilling the country.
Among the concerned citizens was a pressure group, OccupyGhana, which was opposed to burning of the machinery. An executive member of the group, Kweku Segbefia, held that the Mining and Minerals Act outlines sanctions to be served on persons who engage in the illegality of which burning is not an option.
“The law states clearly that if you arrest a person that is using any of these materials, you grab the person and take him to court. You hand over what machinery the person using to the police after the person is convicted, then the court will hand over the equipment to a minister who then assigns the equipment to any ministerial agencies of his choice, that is what the law says,” said Mr. Segbefia.
However, in his response to the question put before him, Mr. Jinapor who doubles as the Damongo Constituency representative in Parliament, insisted that the government is duty bound as enshrined in the constitution to “protect the environment in the most efficacious deterrent way” and one of the ways is to “decommission them or demobilize them.”
“In other words, render them into a state where it becomes impossible for them to be used to continue the perpetration of the illegality” he added.
Buttressing his point, he admitted that the offender must be arrested and arraigned before court as the law states, however, burning of the machinery is the most effective because “most often, the miners abscond making their arrest impossible”.
