The General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Mining, Mr. Godwin Armah has revealed that the small-scale mining industry did not receive any of the COVID-19 stimulus packages disbursed by the government.
Mr. Armah speaking with the Vaultz News said this whiles addressing how the industry is coping with the challenges brought them by the ongoing pandemic and how the support had been so far.
“When you look at COVID, within the first two or three months, there was stimulus package for industries who were in… and the small-scale industry, which a ban had been placed on them on the sector for over two years, government did not even give us. We pushed and wrote but there was no interest.”
“So, clearly there’s no package in place or people not seeing the small-scale sector as an industry that is employing or bringing some sort of development into the country. The only thing people see is the negativity that is associated with the illegality of the industry.”
He noted that prior to the COVID-19, there was a ban placed on the Small Scale Mining industry for 2 years. Due to the ban, the sector lost over $750 million which led to most Small-scale miners losing their source of capital in forms of investments and so, it is only a few that returned to work.
Touching on the challenges that came up as a result of the pandemic, he said although government exempted the small-scale mining from the restrictions on movement, operations were still not effective due to the absence of support in terms of input.
“Government placed some restrictions on movement but because the small-scale mining was exempted, we were able to move to our places of operation but the support that you get in terms of the input, there were bans on them.
“You go to timber market and they are not there and that is where we get our consumables and all that. So, eventually it’s like you are also not working.”
Another challenge he revealed the sector faced was the emergence of illegal mining and acts of indiscipline in the sector. This, he said, was as a result of the miners not wanting to incur debt and the acts of indiscipline, was as a result of lack of monitoring on activities on the mining sites.
“Some of the small-scale miners decided not to wait till they call because you cannot keep on incurring debt when you are not getting your input. These illegal miners also had a field day because Operation Vanguard had been withdrawn and there was no sort of monitoring because the state institutions were rationing their staff and all that.”
The act of Indiscipline became an issue because illegal miners were working on concessions which did not belong to them and also the members of the community were involved in mining activities as well. He said these were the compounded issues but their concessions are being worked on.
Finally, speaking on the land degradation aspect of small-scale mining on the mining communities, he said, this was as a result of illegal miners working on land sites without proper geological data, lack of proper technology and the involvement of the community members themselves.
He further noted that as part of measures to help resolve some of the degradation issues, the association has Task Force assigned to keep places in check, put money into helping to fix degraded sites and also received support from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources in draining the water bodies polluted.
