ENVIRONMENT

Atiwa East DCE goes wild on foreigners in illegal mining at Abekwase
The District Chief Executive of Atiwa East, Nkansah Kwabena Panin has given indications to people of Abekwase that, residents harboring foreigners from Niger and Guinea who are engaged in illegal mining in the district would be arrested if they don’t sack them.

Date Created : 1/21/2020 6:36:42 AM : Story Author : Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanadistricts.com

According to the DCE, he felt so sad on his way to the community where delivery beds were presented by the MP to the chip compound and realized their water bodies have been polluted.

“I hear the foreigners are here with equipment digging for gold, I would urge the youth and women not to get themselves involve in this illegal mining”.

Mr. Nkansah Kwabena Panin noted that the youth would ask if they said the illegal miners, who would give them jobs to do?

And added that what people of Abekwase should understand is that the illegal miners would send the gold to their home country, where the community would not benefit, after paying them just thirty thousand Ghana cedis.

Again they would leave the land just like that without doing anything about it. “I was told by the Eastern Regional Minister that some foreigners from Switzerland in Adasow who cultivate banana and plantain, which is used to prepare chips for export.

“They are creating employment for thousand five hundred Ghanaians, and from that same country they wanted forty footer container of banana every two weeks when they got in touch with me, I told them I could not deliver that”.

Again they demanded four hundred acres of land to establish a plantation of banana I could not find land in our District, they could not come and establish the farms here, “so why should we allow people from Guinea and Niger to come and be mining gold illegally”, he queried.

“If we had this plantation, it would get us annual income, and not the thirty thousand Ghana cedis illegal gold mining, the plantation would have given your children a future, tell the illegal miners that the DCE says they should pack their things and leave”.

He pointed out to them that he had invited immigration, Minerals Commission, and Environmental Protection Agency officials to the District and there is a law in place against illegal mining, as those harboring illegal miners would be arrested together with the illegal miners.