Dissolution of IMCIM: Dissolve community mining – Small Scale Miners to Akufo Addo

Small Scale Miners Association at Dunkwa On-Offin says President Akufo Addo’s U-turn in the dissolution of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) to enable a national stakeholder dialogue should suspend the introduction of community mining.

Vice Chairman of the Small Scale Miners Association Benjamin Annan, said, the President observes the IMCIM is irrelevant to the cause of the NPP after achieving its sole aim of capturing the livelihoods of small scale miners in the country.

He stated that the IMCIM was never intended to fight galamsey but to target legal and licensed small scale miners in the country.

According to him, the setup of the IMCIM was characterized by deception and not to flush out galamsey.

He said, the supposedly national stakeholder consultation by the President should dissolve the community mining and return mining lands to small scale miners.

In an interview, the Vice Chairman said the handling of the community mining by MMDCEs and chairmen gives cause for worry.

“In Obuase, through to Bekwei, Ayanfuri, Amansie and its adjoining communities for instance, about 60% of 120 kilometre square land handed over to small scale miners by AGA must be released to the mining association.

“Our concessions are now being regulated by NPP party chairmen and MMDCEs to the extent that the operation vanguard were protecting party folks using the Chinese to mine in our virgin forests in this country.

“If the government is now really interested in dialogue, then our position is that those lands should be released to us because the community mining is a sham and never served its purpose,” Benjamin Annan emphasised.

President Akufo-Addo in 2017 vowed to put his Presidency on the line to fight against galamsey after he took office as president in 2017.

However, the operation was marred with corruption exposed by investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Ana’s and his team. The exposé captured Presidential Staffer Mr. Charles Bissue accepting money ostensibly to facilitate clearance for a mining company without going through due process.

An audio surfaced online also captured Hon. Frimpong Boateng, Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation heard allegedly agreeing to the request of his party folks; the green light to engage in galamsey to finance the party.

The chairman said, it is not surprising the president after the elections find it prudent to engage stakeholders in dialogue.

“The association prior to the formation of the IMCIM maintained that the use of operation vanguard to stop galamsey was unattainable, due to precedents by successive governments and that a dialogue was the best option to help the president succeed in its quest.”

He said, in spite of suggestions by the association, all efforts to meet the president proved futile. “It is now crystal clear the security forces were coerced, used and dumped.”

According to the Vice Chairman, small scale miners contributed largely to the defeat of MPs in mining communities with the formation of a deliberate agenda dubbed “Agenda ASK the MPs in the mining communities”.

“Those MPs were privy to our plights but were silenced in spite of several appeals to assist us meet the president for a dialogue,” he said.

He asserted that MPs for Tarkwa Nsuaem and Dunkwa lost their seats in the just ended 2020 parliamentary elections, and that urge opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to contest the elections to its logical conclusion.

“The government has starved us for four years already and if the lands are not returned to us, we will not be perturbed, because Israelites went into captivity in Babylon for 70years but they survived and so we will endure another four years and surely we shall survive too,” he said

The national association of small scale miners in an interview with Citi News is demanding for an audit of operations of the IMCIM.

“I think the government should not just dissolve it, but we should have a full audit so that we know how much money they spent,” Godwin Armah, the General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners said.

Michael Kwadwo Peprah, the President of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association, also stressed that there was the need to take a critical look at the committee’s operations because of past controversy.

“They need to be answering questions by now. Where are those missing excavators? Where is the gold? Where are the cars they seized from small scale miners?”