Ghana Begins Monitoring All Excavators In Small-Scale Gold Mining

Ghana’s Minerals Commission in its strategic effort to support government in fighting illegal mining (Galamsey), has inaugurated the Ghana Mine Repository and Tracking Control Centre at its head office in Accra.
The control Centre which serves as a situation room, is meant to track the movement of earthmoving equipment in mining concessions as well as vehicles transporting explosives to mining sites nationwide. This initiative, is as a result of a directive by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources as a strong measure to track all excavators that are used by small-scale miners for their mining activities.
Inaugurating the Control Centre, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor said, “The center is among the many measures we have put in place in strengthening the sanction regime for people who engage in illegal mining. These are systematic interventions to deal with this age-old problem of illegal small-scale mining,”
The Minister in his remarks noted that, the already existing directive that all excavators be registered by metropolitan, municipal and district assembles (MMDAs) must strictly be adhered to and that, such data was very key in the efforts being made to track the mining equipment by the Minerals Commission.
This he said, would complement the other various interventions including Community Mining Scheme, the Operation Halt II taskforce, and the protection of River bodies by River wardens aimed at curtailing the excesses in the small-scale mining sector and developing it further.
Martin Ayisi, Chief Executive of the Minerals Commission, said the establishment of the control Centre was in line with the Minerals and Mining (Local Content and Local Participation) Regulation, LI 2431 (2020).
The Minerals Income Investment Fund(MIIF) is a partner agency to the Minerals Commission in Ghana’s quest to revolutionise Small Scale Mining. “We are sharing best practices and leveraging ideas with all our inter-agency partners,” Chief Executive Officer of MIIF Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng said.
MIIF has designed a Small Scale Incubation plan that is anchored on hand holding small scale mining operations into mid tier companies which can debut on the stock exchange in Ghana.
The Fund expects to invest close to $500 million over the next ten years in this venture.