The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Honourable Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has charged five newly inaugurated mining cooperatives in the Western Region to pursue gold extraction responsibly, insisting that mining and environmental restoration must go hand in hand.
The message was delivered at Nkroful in the Ellembelle District during the inauguration of five Responsible Cooperative Mining and Skills Development Programme societies: Salman, Atomic, Asanta, Bomoakpole and Akropong.
The ceremony marked another step in the government's effort to bring small-scale mining under effective regulation, with the Minister presenting certificates and permits to the cooperatives to support their operations within approved concessions.
He described the initiative as a deliberate attempt to restore order to the sector and demonstrate that mining could be both economically rewarding and environmentally responsible.
Reshaping small-scale mining
The Regional Director of the Department of Cooperatives, Mr Akwasi Adjei Bawuah, described the inauguration as more than a formal ceremony, saying it represented an opportunity to reshape the future of small-scale mining in the Western Region.
He said the five societies had a responsibility to replace the long-standing perception of small-scale mining as informal, unsafe and environmentally destructive with a model built on legality, safety and shared prosperity.
Mr Bawuah urged members and executives of the societies to make their cooperative bylaws the foundation of their operations, insisting that no individual should be bigger than the society.
He called for transparent record-keeping, open weighing of gold, fair sharing of proceeds and accountability in the management of members' money.
Safety equipment, including helmets and boots, must become standard practice, he said, while tree planting and land reclamation should form part of every society's operations.
