Parties told to add mining, environmental issues in development plans

Participants at a sensitisation workshop in Tema, have called for the need for politicians to factor issues relating to environmental protection into their developmental agenda.

This, they contended, would enable the electorate to hold political parties accountable if they failed to deliver on their promises after being voted into power.

The call was contained in a 12-point communiqué issued at the end of the workshop which was attended by more than 20 participants from political parties, media practitioners, assembly members and community members.

Organised by WACAM with financial support from STAR Ghana, USAID, the EU and DANIDA, the workshop was aimed at interacting with political parties on the need to include mining and environmental issues in their campaign and manifestoes, and above all, ensuring peace in the country even beyond the December 7 polls.

The workshop participants also called on political parties to join hands to campaign against companies whose activities pollute the environment, including water bodies.

They stressed the need to review the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703), to ensure that mining companies did not exploit the land and that investors also did not hide behind their so-called corporate social responsibility programmes as a form of development, while totally destroying the land.

The communiqué also called for a sustainable development plan for affected mining communities because compensation normally paid them by mining companies are woefully inadequate to sustain their future.

It also stressed the need for the law to be crafted in such a way that it dealt ruthlessly with investors whose activities adversely affected the environment within mining communities.

Source: GNA