<<Print>>

Some top officials at the Minerals Commission have called on Ghanaians to blame the Mahama administration for the delay in the ratification of mining lease agreement of multi-national mining companies in the country. According to the workers of the Commission, the delay by Parliament to ratify mining lease agreements of multi-national mining companies is as a result of persistent reshuffle of ministers at the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry by the current administration. The workers admitted that majority of the mining companies currently in the country were operating without ratified mining lease agreement. According to them, �since the NDC took over power from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2008, the party has changed ministers at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources for about three consecutive times. The first minister, the workers recalled, was Alhaji Collins Dauda, who was followed by Alhaji Inusah Fuseini and now Osae Mills. The workers who preferred to remain anonymous strongly kicked against this decision by President Mahama stressing that �this worrying situation has brought our monitoring, supervisory and regulatory works at the Minerals Commission backwards.� They cited the recent situation where the ministry had to turn back to the Minerals Commission for the full list of multi-national and small-scale mining companies operating without ratified leased agreements. That action, according to the workers, was on the premise that the then Minister, Alhaji Fuseini, had been reshuffled with the current Minister, Mr. Mills, insisting that the Commission had to re-update the list of the mining companies. That worrying development explains the reasons why many Ghanaians including former President, Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings, arguing that President Mahama�s ministers were inexperienced and lacked the technical-know-how to handle their core mandates. The workers revealed this at a multi-stakeholders� forum on amendments to the Ghana Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act) 703 held in Accra last Wednesday. The revelation came to light when visibly angry residents from some mining operating communities including Tarkwa, Obuasi, Akyem Oda and Prestea Huni Valley at the workshop lashed out at the Minerals Commission, accusing it of aiding the multinational mining companies to secretly operate galamsey on their concessions. The workshop, which was organised by the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) and Wacam, with funding from OSIWA, brought together residents from Nsawam, Koforidua, Dormaa, Saamang, Kenyase, Akyem Oda, Bogoso, Prestea, Kubi, Tarkwa, Takoradi, Obuasi and Accra. The residents fumed that the delay by the Minerals Commission and ministry of lands and natural resources through the government to send the mining contract leases to Parliament for approval was a deliberate attempt by the regulatory institution to �collude with the mining companies to rob the nation� at the expense of Ghanaians. They charged Parliament to hold the Minerals Commission and the ministry of lands and natural resources responsible, saying that the action and inaction of the two state monitoring and regulatory institutions amounted to complete breach of Ghana Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703). On the issue of companies operating without ratified contracts, the residents asserted that they would soon make the public know the number of mining companies whose contracts were yet to be approved by Parliament. For his part, the Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis (CEIA,) Mr. Samuel Obiri, collaborated the assertion of the residents that there were a number of mining companies whose mining contract leases had not been ratified by Parliament describing the situation as a �complete economic crime.� For instance, Mr. Obiri asked that �which individuals or institutions do these mining companies pay their royalties to as they do not have legal backing to operate mining activities�? Mr. Obiri therefore called on President Mahama to set a committee of enquiry to investigate the mining companies which were operating without any legal backing.