The government has signalled moves to ban the use of ‘Changfang’ – a floating platform with suction pumps by small scale miners, to save the nation’s water bodies.

Mr. Ben Aryee, an Advisor on Mines at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, said they had already started the process towards doing just that – a law to that effect, was being drafted.

This would help to prevent further pollution and destruction of water bodies.

He was speaking at the Ashanti Regional stakeholders’ engagement on the 2016/2017 annual mining, oil and gas reports, in Kumasi.

It provided the platform to discuss the reports, which had been prepared by the Ghana Extractive Industries Transparent Initiative (GHEITI).

Mr. Aryee told the gathering that small scale mining would be effectively regulated to safeguard the environment.

There would also be tracking devices in all earth moving equipment used for mining to allow for close monitoring of the activities of the miners.

He underlined the government’s determination to make sure that the nation derived optimized benefits from its natural resources.

It was eager to see the Minerals Development Fund properly regulated. Extensive consultation – stakeholder engagements had already been done.

Additionally, new regulations on mineral royalties had been drafted and now being fine-tuned.

He said ensuring that the people saw real benefits from the extraction of minerals resources in terms of transformation of their socio-economic lives was at the heat of everything the Ministry was doing.

The expectation was that the work of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) would continue to bring other positive outcomes through policy, institutional, capacity and other reforms, that would help to enhance transparency, good governance and accountability in the extractive industry.

Source: GNA