Accra, Nov. 5, GNA - WACAM, a non-governmental organization, on Thursday expressed its support for governments' efforts in ensuring proper treatment of waste resulting from mining.

Mr Daniel Owusu Koranteng, Chief Executive of WACAM, told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra that for the government to make any impact in the mining areas, there should be a mechanism for receiving complaints from communities largely affected by mining operations. Mr Koranteng said regulators should not be issued on arm-chair basis but that officials should follow up complaints for redress and give feed back to complainants and the communities at large.

He further proposed that findings from studies made on environment and water bodies must not be limited to the Ministry and the mining companies but be made available to people affected.

Mr Koranteng said communities were denied access to such information and that the denial raised suspicion to the effect that regulatory agencies were colluding with mining companies against the interests of the local communities.

He said waste disposal in the mining sector did not only create huge problems but health hazards as well, adding that one tone of processed gold ore resulted in 30 tons of rock waste. "If you add waste from processing which is dumped into a trailing pond, it's a lot of them". The waste, Mr Koranteng went on, also contained some metals which when released into the atmosphere and water bodies in the communities, could cause cancer and other allied diseases for a long time.