The Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Simon Osei-Mensah has confirmed that indeed some appointees of the current government are indeed involved in illegal mining known in local parlance as galamsey.

He has however hinted that these persons could soon be named and shamed in the wake of sustained efforts by the Akufo-Addo led administration to protect water bodies that have been polluted.

In his welcome address at Regional Consultative Dialogue on Small Scale Mining at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi on Wednesday May 12, 2021, Mr. Osei-Mensah added that such appointees will face the appropriate sanctions.

“The government appointees involved in galamsey will be shamed and given proper sanctions. We can’t go against the principles, policies of the president. I pray all the stakeholders to succeed in the fight against the galamsey,” he said while lamenting on how farmlands have been destroyed which could impact negatively on food security in the country.

The government put together a two-day National Consultative Dialogue on Small-Scale Mining involving about 14 stakeholders, including former ministers of Lands and Natural Resources, members of the Council of State, members of the National House of Chiefs, heads of security agencies, actors in the mining industry and members of the Small-Scale Miners Association to develop a roadmap for tackling the problem of illegal small-scale mining in the country.

At the end of the dialogue, the stakeholders, among other things, charged the government to take steps to strictly apply the country’s mining laws.

Source: mynewsgh.com