The soon-to-be governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has vowed to conduct an audit into the amount of money the outgoing government has invested in the fight against illegal mining.
Speaking on State of Affairs, the party’s spokesperson on mining, Dr. Tony Aubynn said the incoming administration had to investigate and obtain a fair idea about how effective government has been in curbing the age-old problem.
“The amount of resources that have gone into the fight because of the environmental issues, some monies went into the rehabilitation of the land, some went into creating alternative livelihood programs, all these things, so we need to understand. There is nothing wrong with trying to understand how you use state money,” he told Joshua Kodjo Mensah.
He explained that it was in the national interest as the financial support packages which appropriated for the efforts, were essentially from Ghanaians.
Dr. Aubynn, who served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Commission during the erstwhile Mahama administration recounted instances where lump sums were spent on assessment and rehabilitation of destroyed lands.
“Even at the early stage, there was some $300 million given for studies, the monies for planting, rehabilitating of the depleted lands, several sources of funding that came in. So it will be very good for the country for the sake of transparency,” he said.
The former mining Executive said the president-elect had demonstrated his commitment to addressing financial mismanagement in the mining sector by setting up a data collection team on government corruption dubbed Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL).
As part of a comprehensive effort to deal with illegal mining, the NDC has promised to put stringent measures in place to ensure that mining does not occur near water bodies. The party has also pledged to introduce a 24-hour economy policy to provide jobs for the youth who would otherwise resort to galamsey.
