Salt miners demand cash instead of materials

Nyanyano, Oct. 29, GNA - The Nyanyano Salt Producers Association has requested the government to stop supplying them with materials but to pay the loans intended for such materials into their personal accounts.

They said the 6.165 billion cedis loan released to the Association depended on the total amount of what the miners diversely requested and that they should be given the right to manage what is due them than give them materials, which is difficult to quantify in money terms. Members of the Association made the request at an emergency meeting held at Nyanyano on Wednesday.

Addressing the meeting, Mr Franklin Kodwo Mensah, Secretary of the Association, said there were no receipts covering the materials being supplied to individual miners and added that it was difficult to know the actual cost of material allocated to each miner and the balance each one should refund.

He said the loan would attract interest and the way things were being organized someone might pay an interest on what he or she might not have benefited from.

He said since the loan was repayable within four years, what was due them must be released without delay so as to enable them to prepare the infrastructure well in advance before the mining season. Mr Mensah said that materials in terms of stones and cement were not the only deciding factors in salt mining but there were other overhead cost such as labour and other logistics that needed to be met. He however thanked the government for the loan.