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Assemblies urged to help change
irresponsible mining in Ghana
Obuasi, Nov 26, Ghanadot/GNA- Metropolitan, Municipal and
District Assemblies have been urged to provide the necessary
inputs that would help change irresponsible mining
operations in the country.
Mrs Amma Kodom-Agyemang, a Communications Specialist at the
Land Administration Project (LAP) of the Ministry of Lands,
Forestry and Mines, who made the call, noted that the
assemblies should not only look up to Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs) to advocate against irresponsible
mining in the country.
Mrs Kudom-Agyemang, who was speaking at a day's public
sensitization workshop on LAP for members and departmental
heads of the Obuasi Municipal Assembly (OMA) at Obuasi at
the weekend, stressed that "NGOs are not against mining but
are against the kind of mining taking place in some parts of
the country".
She said district assemblies have a role to play in
addressing the kind of mining that impacted negatively on
the lives of the people.
The LAP Communications Specialist, who was speaking on the
"Overview of LAP", further urged the assemblies to use the
royalties they received for development; especially in
communities where mining activities had a direct impact on
them.
"Some of the communities are peeved because they are denied
development though they suffered directly from the mining
activities", she said.
Mrs Kudom-Agyemang stressed that the government had adopted
and amended the National Land Policy to improve upon land
administration to support the socio-economic development in
the country.
She indicated that LAP held great prospects for the
re-engineering of the land administration system in the
country.
Mrs Christie Bobobee, Ashanti Regional Co-ordinator of LAP,
noted that the project would have economic benefits to the
country since security of tenure and certainty of land
rights would be improved to bring about increased
investment.
She stressed that "land is the basis of most economic
activities in the country".
She said LAP would quicken the processing of land documents
to reduce investors and land users' frustrations.
Mrs Bobobee said the Project would help improve revenue
generation in the areas of non-tax revenue and property
rates.
Mr Thomas Ansre, Social Development Specialist of LAP, urged
district assemblies to strengthen their monitoring
mechanisms so that people did not flout their land use plan.
GNA
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