The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor has justified why excavators used in mining areas deserve to be razed to ashes.

The Minister, speaking at the ''Meet the Press'' series held at the Ministry of Information, stated that it is not his delight nor his Ministry's to hope for gold miners' excavators to be burned, but the illegal miners have ignored his warning to them.

He told the press that his Ministry gave a 7-day ultimatum to the illegal miners to evacuate their machinery from the mining areas but they have refused to heed.

''The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources issued a statement under my hand and gave a window of escape. Even that, some people criticized it that why do you give a warning? But we thought that we should be sensitive. We should be humane. We gave seven (7) clear days for people to evacuate and here we are, the instructions are being enforced and as always, as it happens in our part of the world, you will have people begin to raise issues here and there.''

He renamed the burning of the excavators a ''decommission'' exercise saying he supports the Military's action to destroy them.

''What will an excavator be doing on River Pra? What will an excavator be doing on River Offin or a changfang be doing on River Pra? Ghanaians and all of us, I will respectfully submit, that we should interrogate the issue from that point before we get to the stage of what has happened to that excavator and that is it right or wrong to decommission that excavator.

"In terms of the social debate, I will once again contend that we begin the debate from what will an excavator possibly be doing on a river body and if, as a people, we're able to answer that question that, yes, an excavator can be there to construct a road or do some sort of activity which is in the interest of the public or which is good and so on and so forth, then we can begin to make some efforts and can begin to move forward on that. But if we come to the conclusion that an excavator ought not to be on a river body and it's not as though we woke one night overnight and said all excavators on river bodies will be decommissioned. We never did so," he stressed.

To him, the Military's action is a patriotic one and needs to be commended.

"I very strongly but respectfully conclude by saying that it's either we're fighting this menace or we're not. It's either we're determined to clear our water bodies and forest reserves or we are not. We cannot waver in this matter. So, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and, for that matter, government supports the Ghana Armed Forces in this patriotic work they're engaged in."

Source :peacefmonline.com