Government in its quest to control illegal mining in river bodies is to ban the importation, sales and distribution of Changfeng machines and their components in the country.
This move is to disable illegal miners to operate in river bodies.
A greater percentage of river bodies in minerals-endowed communities have been either polluted or silted thus making it impossible for the waters in the rivers to flow.
This is a result of uncontrolled illegal mining activities in river bodies in the Western, Ashanti, Central and Eastern Regions of the country.
Several initiatives by the government to bring the menace under control have not yielded the needed result.
It has therefore become imperative for the problem to be tackled at the source, thus the decision to ban Chamfan machines and their components which are the main enablers of mining in river bodies.
This came to the fore at an emergency meeting of District Mining Committees (DMC) and representatives of traditional council and security services in the Western Region to devise means of halting the activities of galamsey operators on river bodies.
While the DMCs were calling for logistics for monitoring, the chiefs sought greater involvement in the granting of mine liaises and the need for them to be empowered.
The Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Mines, Mr Mireku Duker says, though the various interventions are making some positive feedback much need to be done.
He implored stakeholders particularly the chiefs and community members to cooperate with the state.
He says to tackle the problem from the source, Chamfan machines and their components will be banned in the country.
“Nobody can justify arresting them. The machines are replaced at the end of the day, even if the security agencies burn them. We must look out for the areas they manufacture and assemble their Chamfam.
As a government, we are amending our laws to include the importation of these machines. The justification offered by the importers of this equipment is that the Chamfan is used for milling.
As a country, how can we allow these importers to smuggle 1000s of Chamfan into the nation for milling purposes as we have other machines we already use. Every citizen should be a watchdog of these illegal miners as they are polluting our water bodies.
We will be meeting chiefs and stakeholders in the Ashanti region on Tuesday followed by all mining regions in the country. We encourage every citizen to make this a collective responsibility to protect our rivers,” He mentioned.
Mr Mireku Duker also indicated plans to amend the mining act to extend the buffer zones around water bodies from the current 100 metres to 500 metres to protect them.
