Ghanaians will judge if Akufo-Addo’s comments made sense – Mining Consultant
A mining consultant based in the United States, Dr Solomon Owusu has stated that as to whether the president made sense or not in a recent speech regarding illegal mining, Ghanaians would judge.
Dr Owusu during an interview on TV3 on 6th October 2022, downplayed the essence of the president summon of the Chiefs and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives, deeming it a complete waste of time, energy and resources to engage them.
“The chiefs are the custodians of the land but the minerals within the land are owned by the government of the republic of Ghana, which you President Akufo-Addo are the leader, do chiefs grant prospecting licenses, and mining leases or forestry entry for small scale miners, EPA licences. After granting the licenses who monitors the activities of the Small scale miners and what role do the chiefs have to play,” he asked.
He added that the “Chiefs have a responsibility of making sure their lands are protected, the animals and rivers are protected and all that but if the government can assign military men to protect illegal miners in our forest reserve what powers do the chiefs have to prevent their activities” Is an Akufo–Addo aware some military men were protecting a small scale miner who was mining in the Manso forest, Kokrofor before the Akonta mining and the person was named as Donald Antua? Has the president made any move to arrest and prosecute Donald? There are thousands of evidence that President Akufo-Addo is not ready to stop illegal mining. He is rather behaving like an ostrich and protecting them. The role they have to play is when there are suspicious activities and they have been raising alarm and they have been enemies especially my own Adansi Chief Opegyakotwi Abu Bonsra and president Akufo-Addo’s own appointees have been preventing them from fighting illegal mining”.
“Are you aware that on On September 10th 2018 the then local Government Minister Hajia Alima Mahama stated that she knew that about 70 of the MMDCEs are engaged in illegal mining?”
Commenting on What has to change, Dr Owusu said, “I am not sure president Akufo–Addo and his team are ready to change the status quo. The chiefs are not technical people to know about the various stages of mining. Whether some are geologists, they do not know how mining should be done to prevent environmental degradation and this is a typical technical problem the country is facing so the president should engage people with the requisite knowledge to bring out a standard procedure for them to mine without polluting the water bodies. In the United States, we do mining here, small scale and large scale; the question is why can’t we do the same in Ghana?”
“If you engage chiefs and party vigilante boys where are we headed to and what is he expecting,” Dr Owusu asked.
