Ghana News-The Concerned Small Scale miners Association is at the throat of the government again over the ban on their operations; a situation they say is causing them untold hardship.
They accuse the President of not understanding the galamsey problem and worst of all trying to solve it without their involvement.
“They did not engage us…Amewu just asked us to stop work and wait for them to fight the galamseyers before we the legal small scale miners restart our operations. That line of thought was even dead on arrival”, they said in an interview on Kumasi FM.
Stephen Arhin and Kwadwo Peprah; executives of the Association insisted that the use of military might against the miners as in Operation Vanguard will fail “just like operation DragNet and others in the past”.
They hold that the government does not have a clue on how to deal with galamsey.
“You cannot ban something that is already illegal…so the galamsey folks are still working as they always have. It is the legal miners that are suffering from the ban”, they explain.
They say the prolonged ban on their activities is not fair considering the difficulties with getting a mining license in Ghana.
They are gearing up for a huge demonstration after their two-weeks ultimatum to the government expires.
They say non-miners will join the demonstration because the ban has indirectly affected a lot of different categories of workers including drivers, market women among a host of others.
Their words to the Minister of lands and Natural Resources; John Peter Amewu is: “If Peter Amewu does not know how to solve the problem, he should vacate his seat”!
The NPP government placed a moratorium on small scale mining activities as part of the government’s efforts to deal with the water pollution and environmental degradation caused by the miners shortly after taking over power.
It has been a year and 4 months since and small scale miners say they cannot look on any more especially since they are being harassed to pay back loans they invested in their business.
They are in a hurry to return to work despite government’s assurance the moratorium will soon be lifted.
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