The Catholic Bishops’ Conference has revived calls for the government to show more commitment in the fight against illegal mining (galamsey) by declaring a state of emergency in targeted areas affected by the menace.
At a meeting with President Mahama at the Jubilee House on May 23, the Bishops demanded a repeal of the Mining and Minerals Act that permits mining in forest reserves and on water bodies.
“Your Excellency, we propose the following and we are ready to back you up in all ways to arrest this menace. Repeal of permissive legal instruments, audit and repeal legislative instruments enabling unchecked licensing under the Minerals and Mining Act,2006 Act 703 and associated legislative instruments. Immediate freeze on new artisanal and small-scale mining licenses until a full review of environmental and social impacts is completed,” they demanded.
The Bishops added, “We believe there should be targeted state of emergency. Declare,Your Excellency, a limited state of emergency in all the affected zones to suspend all mining activities temporarily. Deploy military engineering units for reclamation.
Restore lawful local governance and other centralized oversight. Establish district level mining task forces with civil society and church observers to monitor local operations.”
President Mahama assured them that the government’s efforts being implemented to tackle the menace will yield results.
“…currently the statistics we have is 16 percent of our forest reserves have been destroyed and encroached upon. It will need both reclamation and rehabilitation of the forest, and we are intending to do that under the carbon credit system because if you reclaim mined lands and you restore forests you can claim it under carbon credits and that will give us more money to reclaim some more of the forest. And then if you want it in hectares almost equivalent of 5,000 hectares actually 4,726 hectares of forests have been destroyed by illegal mining,” the President said.
The post Galamsey: Catholic Bishops’ Conference urges gov’t to declare limited state of emergency in affected areas first appeared on 3News.
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