John-Peter Amewu, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resource while speaking at an event on Wednesday has stated that, the government has taken the decision to extend the ban on illegal mining activities across the country till further notice.

He said that, the Akufo addo administration is not fully convinced about the achievement it has made towards the eradication of the galamsey activities across the country.

“The ban has invariably been extended because we haven’t lifted it, we met with the Small-Scale Mining Association and clearly, our targets have not been met, and so we expect some level of collaboration, which the Association is closely working with us”.

The ban which took effect from May 2017 was expected to have ended in October last year over its six months ban but it was extended again for an extra three months.

The extension as he stated will enable the Ministry to examine its progress before taken any decision.

He said, “This whole issue of illegal mining, sand winning and illegalities is as a result of weak agencies, but if we have supervisors who are expected to supervise these people to make sure the right thing is done, we will not be witnessing this”.

He further indicated how President Akufo Addo has put in much effort to support the initiative of eradicating the illegal mining activities across the country.

Mr Amewu was being awarded by the at the event where he made the statemen by the  Bureau of Research, Governance, Commerce and Administration, a research think tank and the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), in Accra.

He indicated that more mining districts would be established across the country, while efforts were underway to procure new logistics for them, so that when the ban is lifted, they would be in a position to supervise and monitor mining activities to ensure that the proper things are done.

Upon his assumption of office last year, the Minister penned down three areas in the land reform programme which included g sanitising the small-scale mining industry, reclamation of the mined areas and speeding up the land title registration process.

He indicated that his Ministry will see to it that  alternative livelihood programmes under the Multi-sectorial Mining Integrated Project (MMIP), saying the project is expected to be launched in the cause of the year.

Ghanaguardian.com