Community Mining Scheme Disbanded

The government has disbanded the Community Mining Scheme that was introduced under the Government of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

The scheme was intended to address the underlying causes of illegal mining popularly known as galamsey by encouraging effective local community participation in small-scale mining.

However, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Kofi Buah, asserts that the scheme only existed in name.

At a press conference on March 19, he stated that the participating communities were not the beneficiaries.

“The community mining scheme is in name only. Our team has visited a lot of these areas where community mining schemes were done and the general overwhelming feedback was that the communities were not involved in the mining schemes so we cannot issue small-scale mining licences in the name of communities when the communities in fact were not part of these schemes. This was just a creation in name.”

He, therefore, announced its disbandment.

In place of that, he announced small-scale mining cooperatives.

“They are to be disbanded and replaced with small-scale mining cooperatives that actually serve and benefit the communities. These cooperatives will be formed after due diligence with the communities involved to properly represent the communities.”

The scheme was governed by a code of practice as stated in Regulations 475 and 515 of the Minerals and Mining (health, safety and technical) Regulations, 2012 (L.I. 2182).

According to an article published on the scheme by the former government, there were Community Mining Oversight Committees in each of the areas the scheme is in existence to ensure that the operations of miners under the scheme conformed to health and safety protocols as well as ensured the protection of water bodies and the environment.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini