Akrofuom District Assembly to form Electoral area taskforce to fight illegal mining

Following Government's renewed fight against illegal mining, the Akrofuom District Assembly, led by the Chief Executive Honorable Maurice Jonas Woode, has come out with strategies to fight against the menace in the District. In his Sessional address to the General Assembly, the DCE said though Government has rolled out several interventions to curtail the activities of illegal mining, the menace still persists. He said the Assembly has come out with a more effective way to deal with illegal mining activities in the District. " The Government has come out with Operation Vanguard, Galamstop, Operation Halt I, and Halt II, all intended to Halt the activities of illegal miners but with little success. We believe that as an Assembly, setting up an Electoral area task force will be the surest way to deal with illegal mining at Akrofuom". According to Hon. Maurice Jonas Woode, there is a need for a permanent Taskforce whose members live with illegal miners in the communities. He said the Taskforce would operate under three (3) mandates, namely, identifying and registering all categories of miners in the electoral area, identifying the mining sites of these miners, and ensuring that the miners possess the requisite documents for their activities. He reiterated the directive by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources for all owners, operators, and users of excavators to be registered in the District by Wednesday, November 2, 2022. He added that upon registration, the owners would specify the purpose for which the excavator is being used and the area where the excavator will operate. He implored owners of excavators in the District to heed the directive and register their excavators with the Assembly. Assembly to clamp down social vices Hon. Woode, in his address, also revealed that recent data on Teenage pregnancy did not put the District in a good light among other districts in the Ashanti Region. This, he said, has prompted the Assembly to form a community-based social vice task force to nip the situation in the bud. " In relation to this issue, next Tuesday, representatives from Nananom, Churches, Heads of families, and the Assembly will form a team to find solutions to children's involvement in wake keeping, betting, and wee smoking in the district", he added. Strategies to improve internally generated fund The DCE said even though the Assembly has been able to generate IGF of GH734,323.31 as against the budgeted GH680,000, as of September 2022, it had to increase its budgeted revenue to GH750,000 to boost revenue mobilization. He added that the delay in the release of the District Assembly Common Fund had affected the Assembly's revenue generation and financing of capital expenditure. "Consequently, we have decided to finance some of our capital expenditure with our IGF we have therefore decided to find ways to improve our revenue. To achieve this I have tasked Assembly members to develop data for ratable items in their electoral area. I have also tasked them to recommend persons to be recruited as revenue collectors to boost the numbers". He again appealed to the Assembly members to help in identifying vantage points in their Communities for the election of revenue barriers.