Article published in the The Independent - 10 April, 2008 - by Ishmael Barfi & Grace Akrasi Asare
The Minister of Lands, Forestry & Mines, Hon. Esther Obeng Dappah, has stated that, her outfit is distributing an amount of forty (40) million euros grant from the European Union for the Mining Sector Support Programme (MSSP) to undertake various projects to improve the mining sector in the country.
One of the projects, she pointed out, would be an implementation of alternative livelihood projects in mining communities to improve relationship between mining companies and the communities within which they operate.
Hon. Esther Obeng Dappah disclosed this when she took her turn to address the media at the weekly meet-the-press series in Accra.
The rest of the projects to be undertaken are institutional reinforcement and capacity building, development of geological data, including airborne geophysical survey of the entire Voltarian and Keta Basins mineral and other resources and the abatement of mercury pollution resulting from small scale mining.
The Minister admitted that, the mining sector of the Ministry over the years has faced problems limiting mining operations in the country.
She cited over-reliance on few traditional minerals such as gold, diamonds, manganese and bauxite, outmoded legal and fiscal regimes, hostile relationship between mining companies and host communities and environmental degradation (Mercury pollution of water bodies by small scale miners) as some of the problems in the mining sector.
She stated that, the Ministry would develop a new Mining Policy as well as review the legal and fiscal regimes to attract more investment into the mining sector.
The Minister pointed out that, an act, Minerals and Mining Act 2006 (Act 703) has been enacted based on international best practices, which do not only make the sector internationally competitive, but also address the interest of other stakeholders such as relocation, resettlement of mining communities and compensation for use of land.
She stated that, "the strategy to promote value addition to our minerals has also yielded positive results."
Touching on the lands sub-sector, she indicated that, as at the beginning of 2001, the lands sub-sector faced various challenges hindering its progress.
The Minister pointed out that, in order to address the problems facing land administration in the country, her outfit instituted measures to streamline policies and legislative framework as well as establish an efficient and cost effective one-stop-corporate-organization to handle land management in order to reduce time and cost of land registration and titling.
She said the Ministry has achieved some progress with the implementation of these strategies.
To make land transaction easier, she pointed out that, a bill to establish a new Lands Commission with all land agencies under it, is currently before Parliament for consideration, and also disclosed that, negotiations for the construction of a new office building for the new Land Agency have been considered.
Hon. Esther Dappah explained that, in order to reduce insecurity in land tenure and avoid multiple sales of land, 10 customary land secretariats (one in each region) have been established.
