WACAM, CEPIL developing sample mining bill
A Sample Mining Bill is being developed to address the gaps inherent in the Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703), to ensure increased benefits for the country, mining communities and to protect the environment.
It is being developed by the Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM), a community-based human rights and environmental mining advocacy NGO, in collaboration with the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) and Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis with support from IBIS, Care Ghana, and Ford Foundation.
It seeks to influence legal reforms in the country’s mining sector to reflect the guiding principles and policies of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Directives on mining.
The ECOWAS Directives on Mining provide for Free Prior and Informed Consent and the Polluter Pays Principles, which compel mining companies to respect community rights.
Giving an overview of mining investments in Ghana at a forum in Tamale, to collate inputs into the bill, Mrs Hannah Owusu-Koranteng, the Associate Executive Director of WACAM, said mining activities had led to environmental pollution, human rights abuses and loss of livelihoods of residents in mining communities.
Mrs Owusu-Koranteng said the destruction mining caused to the environment and livelihoods was far more than the benefits derived, hence the need to amend the current Minerals and Mining Act of 2006 (Act 703), to guarantee increased benefits for the country.
Mr Augustine Niber, the Executive Director of CEPIL, said the sample bill seeks to strengthen the country’s mining law to ensure more benefits to mining communities as well as to protect the environment.
Mr Niber said the bill advocated that a broad range of persons, including community members, must decide on issues of concession acquisition and compensation amongst others, as against the sole authority of the Minister in charge of the mining sector, as prescribed by the current law.
The forum was attended by civil society organisations and representatives of public regulatory institutions drawn from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.
Source: GNA