COMMENT: When small-scale gold mining is no longer small-scale

The time has come for officialdom to be told a few home truths about small-scale gold mining.

With respect, individuals and business entities deploying 32-tonne excavators and bulldozers in Ghana, are not engaged in small-scale gold mining - and ought not to be issued with small-scale gold mining licences: and given concessions under any circumstances.

It is an outrage that currently they are issued with permits and licenses for small-scale gold mining - and given concessions on top of that outrage.

The question is: How many of those issued with small-scale gold mining permits by the Minerals Commission, who are now busy destroying land providing valuable eco-system services to Ghanaians, have even paid the reclamation bond required from those causing such wanton destruction, for example, I ask? Ditto their fair share of corporate tax - and pay fair compensation to the wretched victims of their fraudulent compensation-schemes?

The desolation and damage caused in a few hours, by 32-tonne excavators and bulldozers, to what has taken millions of years to evolve - and the preservation of which is vital for quality-of-life reasons for present and future generations of our people - has to be seen to be believed.

At a time of global climate change, it is intolerable and unacceptable that a few wealthy people, can use the cover of a law meant to create self-employment opportunities for teeming masses of the rural poor across Ghana, to cause such untold havoc to the natural environment, across our nation.

And it is destruction on a scale that is unspeakable, harrowing, mind-numbing, unimaginable, and irreparable.

Above all, it is harm to the natural environment that amounts to a terrible crime against humanity - which we must neither accept nor tolerate as a people.

Is it not time someone engaged the Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) to sue the Minerals Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Water Resources Commission, on behalf of the people of Ghana - for what in effect amounts to criminal negligence: issuing permits to people and business entities applying for small-scale gold mining permits, under false pretences: knowing perfectly well that they will be using 32-tonne excavators and bulldozers, to mine gold?

To describe mining for gold with heavy earth-moving equipment as small-scale is an egregious misnomer - and disingenuous.

The owners and operators of 32-tonne excavators and bulldozers deployed to work a gold mining concession, must not be categorised as small-scale gold miners - for they are not mining gold on a small-scale. On the contrary, they are using earth-moving heavy-duty machinery that cause damage to the natural environment on a scale that is apocalyptic.

The small-scale mining law was never meant to give carte blanche to criminal syndicates to poison our soils and pollute our streams and rivers - in an enterprise that amounts to the brutal gang-rape of Mother Nature with impunity.

The small-scale mining law was meant to give employment to individuals and groups of people using traditional methods to mine gold.

It was never meant to provide legal protection from prosecution, for wealthy criminals driven by unfathomable greed, who do not care one jot about the effect of their actions on the natural environment, and on their fellow humans - and give them a license to destroy the Ghanaian countryside in their quest for gold.

Neither was the small-scale mining law ever meant to provide legal cover to selfish people - and permit the destruction of our natural heritage and the poisoning of our soils and rivers with mercury and cyanide.

Listening to Peace FM yesterday afternoon, it became obvious to me that the wealthy criminal syndicates behind most of the illegal gold mining causing such harm to the natural environment across vast swathes of the Ghanaian countryside, are now on a PR offensive.

Their trump card is a "documentary" to "be aired soon". Being who they are, no doubt the purpose of the said "documentary", is to give the distinct impression to viewers who are not discerning, that they are watching real-time events showing the unlawful conduct of actual security service personnel raiding a "small-scale" mining company's premises.

Those in charge of the safety of the Republic and securing the Government of the day in our democracy, had better sit up.

If it has not yet dawned on them, criminal Chinese triad-gangs with a global reach, looking to launder cash from their criminal activities elsewhere, may have found a perfect home in Ghana - and willing and enthusiastic allies in the wealthy criminal syndicates behind illegal gold mining in our country.

Any discerning and patriotic individual who listened to the president of the small-scale miners association on Peace FM could not help but to have been appalled and alarmed by what they heard.

That genius seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was describing the profile of money- launderers - in a hurry to turn dirty money into the best store of value there is on the planet Earth: gold - in telling the millions listening to Peace FM that the Chinese investors funding the operations of small-scale gold mining companies took risks that our conservative banks would never take.

Today, the president of the Small-scale Miners Association, who also doubles as the president of the Ghana-China Business Association, is said to be suing the government because the security agencies apparently raided his premises and allegedly stole his gold.

Perhaps he is a reasonable and law-abiding fellow - and smooth and charming. But, tomorrow, someone else wearing the two hats he wears today, might be a ruthless and cynical outlaw, able to deploy tremendous firepower - thanks to his alliance-of-convenience with criminal Chinese triad-gangs - to fight and kill dozens of men and women from the security agencies, sent to arrest him for multiple murders committed by him and his Chinese partners-in-crime.

Since they are mostly potential warlords-in-the-making, the time has come for officialdom to clip their wings - by withdrawing all the small-scale mining licences and permits issued to individuals and business entities who use excavators and bulldozers to mine gold in Ghana.

We are definitely looking at a situation in which issued small-scale gold mining permits are being used to give legal cover to gold mining that is not small-scale in scope.

The authorities must act now before it is too late to do so - and we all end up as the victims of 'small-scale' gold miners: living blighted lives in a desolate land, lumbered with poisoned soils, and contending with streams and rivers polluted by cyanide and mercury. A word to the wise...