Co-chair of the Ghana Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative (GHEITI) Dr Steve Manteaw, has encouraged small-scale miners to operate more responsibly to gain government’s recognition and support.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a stakeholder forum in Accra on Thursday, he emphasised the importance of small-scale miners giving back to their host communities to mitigate the environmental and social impact of their activities.

He noted that the sector contributed significantly to domestic production, however, the miners contributed less than one per cent to domestic revenue mobilisation, as they “often do not pay royalties, corporate income tax,” and other fiscal commitments.

Dr Manteaw, therefore, recommended that small-scale miners “must do more” to make the sector attractive, which would enable the government to “prioritise” more land releases for their activities.

“Most small-scale miners do not pay royalty, corporate income tax, and a lot of the fiscal imposts that large scale mining companies pay. So, the point is for them to begin to give back to society in terms of the benefits they are deriving from their activities,” he said.

“Currently, small-scale mining is not on government priority list…it is when they act responsibly that government would pay attention to them,” he said.

The forum was convened by the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners (GNASSM), an umbrella National Trade Association of Small-Scale Miners in Ghana, in collaboration with TrustAfrica, a Pan African foundation focused on strengthening democracy and democratic governance.

It sought to discuss the coexistence between Large Scale Mining (LSM) & Artisanal Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) within mining communities.

Issues of concern to participants included land inaccessibility for ASGM operators, unfulfilled land release commitments, land use conflict, reclamation and post-mining land use and the health impacts of mining.

Dr Manteaw highlighted sections of Ghana’s Mineral and Mining Policy, which comprised commitments to support small scale miners with geological information, technology, and access to credit, and called for the revision of the Minerals and Mining Act to ensure inclusion and operationalisation of the policy commitments.

On illegal mining or galamsey, he argued that banning all small-scale miners, together with those who complied with the regulations, would not be a viable solution.

“If we think that people are operating illegally or not abiding by the regulations, what we need to do is to enforce the regulations to ensure the right things are being done… you don’t ban everybody including those who are complying with the law,” he said.

Addressing the issue of non-payment of royalties by the artisanal small-scale mining sector, Mr Godwin Armah, the General Secretary of GNASSM and Board Member of GoldBod, said some small-scale miners were already contributing significantly to the development of their host communities in the form of school buildings and water provision among other projects.

He said coexistence with large-scale mining companies would need a proper framework that involved all relevant stakeholders beyond the government to work together to achieve a sustainable solution.

The forum highlighted strategies such as strengthening legal frameworks for Artisanal Small-scale Gold Mining formalisation, and the implementation of zoning policies to reduce conflicts as some recommendations for sustainable coexistence between large scale and artisanal small-scale gold miners.

The rest are the provision of extension services and technical support, formation of cooperatives and associations, and adopting cleaner technologies to improve the quality of activities and ensure environmental protection.