Eastern Regional Minister Seth Kwame Acheampong has warned that the government will not entertain anyone caught infringing mining regulations.
The Minister said the government is not against regulated mining but illegality in the mining sector destroying the environment.
According to him the renewed fight against illegal mining and safeguarding of water bodies will continue uncompromised until the environment is secured.
“The evidence is before us, what I plead with all of us, we are not against mining but we are against mining activities which are irregular not regulated by a governed state like which is regulated by rule of law and so we are going to fight every person. The regulation says do not mine within a 100m perimeter to the water body and so we are encouraging every person who wants to do their business to go ahead and do their business, however, please don’t cross the line because when you cross the line you will not find the law entertain you, the law will come after you”.
The Regional Minister said this when the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resource visited Eastern Region to inspect the state of the Birim River and Water treatment plants and intake points on Monday.
The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources Cecilia Dapaah led experts at the water resource commission to inspect and assess the state of the Birim River and Water treatment Plants at Kyebi, Bunso, and Osino.
She was alarmed by the level of pollution of the Birim River by illegal miners in the Eastern Region.
According to the Minister, though the Kyebi stretch of the Birim River is clean, the downstream stretch from Bunso to Osino is heavily polluted increasing the turbidity of raw water to an alarming level.
“So, we are here and we’ve seen the devastations of the land as well as the complete muddying of our water body called Birim. The three places we’ve been to, the projects are all on the Birim River, and as we all saw Kyebi has the cleanest water source with a turbidity of 11NTU which is within the acceptable international unit. Then we came to Bunso, and you all heard from the manager there that when they took the sample in the morning the turbidity was 1900NTU then in the afternoon -mid-morning getting to the afternoon they took and it was 330NTU. This means from the explanation they have that indeed when we were asleep some people were working on the river body hence the deepening of the muddy and rising of the turbidity levels”.
She continued “We’ve come here and am very sad. Honestly, very very sad looking at the fact that some people dared to divert the Birim river to form pools for washing their metals and using chemicals which seep through the river”.
The Minister called on all Ghanaians to support President Akufo Addo to protect river bodies in the country.
The Minister and her entourage earlier visited Okyehene at his palace.
Okyenhene advised the government to be resolute in the fight against the galamsey menace to help protect the environment and safeguard water bodies.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com/Obed Ansah
