On Monday, 20th October 2008, the Ghana News Agency reported that Parliament had condemned the executive for: "...failing to bring mining lease agreements entered into with companies to Parliament for ratification. The Government has since 1994 to 2007 failed to seek parliamentary approval for majority of mining companies operating in the country..."
That the surface gold mining companies have operated for decades in our country without the approval of parliament, as required by our constitution, is not surprising in the slightest.
For, the mining lobby in our country, is the most powerful in the land. For decades, the surface mining companies have operated in the most environmentally irresponsible way possible - and have poisoned vast swathes of the Ghanaian countryside, with total impunity.
They would certainly not be allowed to commit what in effect amounts to a crime against humanity, in their own home countries - where surface gold mining has long since been banned.
The poorly-resourced Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is powerless in the face of the political clout the mining lobby wields in Ghana - where they are a law unto themselves, virtually: enjoying the patronage of some of the most powerful people in the land.
Their corporate trade union, the Ghana Chamber of Mines, is currently led by a smooth-talking, super-respectable and sophisticated lady, Ms. Joyce Aryeh - whose good name and reputation they are ruthlessly exploiting with her well-paid permission: to cover up their devastating impact on the natural environment, in the areas they operate in, in our country.
It is such an outrage that apparently, all along, their status here, has more or less not been sanctioned by parliament, even. How can that be - if certain greedy and powerful members of our political class, weren't in their deep pockets?
Well, some day soon, they will be taken to court by concerned citizens for operating without parliamentary approval in our country - and be sued for billions of cedis for the harm that they have caused to many rural communities: whose areas they have succeeded in turning into versions of hell on earth.
The approval by the previous regime of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for surface gold mining to take pace in Ghana, at the behest of the World Bank and IMF,was one of the biggest mistakes that regime ever made.
As a nation, we are far better off leaving the gold in the ground - instead of destroying our precious rain forests, which contain billions and billions of dollars in yet-to-be discovered medicinal plants, for the sake of those who profit from the operations of surface gold mining companies in Ghana - and don't care one jot about the harm the operations of surface gold companies cause to Ghanaians and the natural environment. Period.
Hmmm, Ghana - eyeasem oo: asem ebaba debi ankasa! May God bless and protect our homeland Ghana, always. Long live freedom! Long live Ghana!
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