Convener of the Media Coalition against Galamsey, Ing Ken Ashigbey, has accused some municipal assemblies of charging fees from illegal small-scale miners (Galamseyers).
By this action, Ken Ashigbey said, the Municipal Chief Executives are also engaged in the illegality because the laws frown on persons who facilitate the illegal mining.
Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, August 22, he wondered why there has not been any action against the MCEs who are engaged in this practice.
He said, “We got one of the media houses to do an investigation that showed that assemblies were going to the theatre of the crime and going to collect fees and charges from people who were engaged in the illegalities.”
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Citing Act 995 of the Minerals and Mining Act, Ken Ashigbey said the law also talks about anybody facilitating the illegalities being equally guilty.
“Then you also have the situation where these assemblies too would then take chamfans, equipment that are proscribed by government which we say is illegal, and they charge for it; there is evidence; that evidence is collected by a media house, presented to the government, and what we hear is that it is not true; they thought it was an internal thing. The argument is that this started before them,” he said.
He stressed that these are crimes “because, if you look at the Act, it says that if you facilitate it, you are equally liable.”
“How is it that the MP for Oda mentions the DCE for Oda as charging 14,000 for people who are involved in illegality, and the MCE ‘s only defence is that they did not have a permit?
“The question is: those people who were mining, did they have the EPA permit before they even started? If not, then they are involved in a crime, and this MCE goes to collect this money, and his argument is that they were given receipts.
“Is that what the president took him there to go and do to supervise and investigate illegal mining? We don’t seem to see the challenge that is confronting us; this thing is eating us up.”
