The Association of small-scale miners has accused the taskforce put in place to clamp down on activities of illegal mining of allegedly burning their equipment.
According to the Association, though their members have dully been registered and given concessions by the Minerals Commission to legally operate as small scale miners, the taskforce is still harassing them.
They have, therefore, issued a one week ultimatum to government to immediately order the military who are in charge of the burning of excavators or face their wrath in the form of nationwide demonstrations.
This was made known by the Director of Communication for the Association, Mr Abdul Razak Alhasan, when he addressed the press at Ntafriwaso where the equipment of John Benedict Enterprise, a small scale miner, was completely burnt by the taskforce.
The association, therefore, want to know if burning of equipment of registered miners at their legally acquired concessions was sanctioned by the president.
They claim that their registered members, some of whom had suffered from the taskforce, who neither operate on water bodies nor in forest reserves.
Due to this, they accused the taskforce of committing heinous crime under the guise of clamping down on illegal miners on water bodies and forest reserves.
They have, therefore, called on government to call the taskforce to order and streamline their scope of duty to curtail what they called the wanton destruction of their properties.
Mr Alhasan indicated that prior to the commencement of the operations of the taskforce all relevant issues were raised and holistically discussed.
However, government, they alleged, has turned round to stab them in the back by tasking the military to invade their sites and burn their equipment.
“GNASSM do hereby express their total displeasure about government’s u-turn on issues raised at the recently held Small Scale Mining dialogue at the Accra International Conference Centre,” they said.
They mentioned Ntafriwaso, Antodorm Enterprise sites and Asamoakrom as some of the legally acquired sites where equipment of license Small Scale Miners have been destroyed.
At the Ntafriwaso site the cost of the burnt equipment, which include three excavators and industry pumping machines among others were estimated to be about three million dollars.
They indicated to government not to perceive every Small Scale Miner as an illegal miner but furnish the taskforce with details of all legally registered Small Scale Miners so that they could be exempted.
The post Small scale miners allege illegal burning of their equipment appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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