The government of Ghana has begun processes to issue identification cards to small-scale miners who are beneficiaries of the Community Mining Programme (CMP) launched after the lifting of the two-year ban on all forms of legal small-scale mining activities in the country.

The Community Mining Programme is aimed at formalising mining activities in selected communities across the country.

With, at least, one community mine expected to be set up in each of the mining districts in the country, the community mines are expected to provide job openings for over 4,500 miners that were trained by the government at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Tarkwa.

Following the launch in July 2019, “ID card teams from the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) are in the Wassa Amenfi East Municipality and Akrofuom District in the Western and Ashanti regions, today, Friday 20 September 2019, to issue Community Mining Programme ID cards to miners who have registered for the Community Mining Programme”.

This was contained in a release by the IMCIM which further explained that the initiative aims “to create employment and absorb the youth in the mining communities who are directly or indirectly engaged in illegal mining, into the legal framework for mining”.

Illegal mining, otherwise known as “galamsey” is still illegal in the country and a special joint military-police taskforce, Operation Vanguard, is cracking down on galamseyers.