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Concerned Citizens of Asante Mampong in the Mampong municipality of the Ashanti Region are vehemently opposed to any form of mining in the Mampong Traditional Area.
According to leadership of group, the Minerals Commission has neglected the traditional authorities in granting mining rights to some companies to mine in the area.
In 2019, traditional authorities in the area protested mining rights issued by the Minerals Commission to Eriants, compelling the Commission to withdraw the license.
Later in September, the Minerals Commission again granted license to Active Target Minerals Resources allegedly on the blind side of the traditional authorities which also took the intervention of the Mamponghene in November, according to the group for the said license to be withdrawn.
However, with the sequence of events, members of the Concerned Citizens of Mampong Against Galamsey are of the view that government and the Minerals Commission are poised to degrade their environmental resources and pollute their water resources.
In a press conference on Wednesday, December 7, the president of the Concerned Citizens of Asante Mampong Against Galamsey, Victor Owusu, said the youth of Mampong won’t sit aloof for the activities of any form of mining to pose danger to their existence.
“We, the people in the Asante Mampong Traditional Area, are not oblivious or better still blind to the devastation brought by Galamsey operations in certain communities in Ghana. The devastation of the lands and the pollution of water bodies which bring in its train a baggage of hunger, because farmlands have been made barren by Galamsey activities and thirst, because river bodies have been polluted and infested with mercury and cyanide. Sooner than later such communities will spend all the monies they have gotten from galamsey on food and water,” he bewailed.
He added: “Our vehement rejection of galamsey is the issue of the threat to rivers and water bodies in the Asante Mampong Traditional Area. The fact of the matter is that the operational area of the company that was granted the mineral rights by the Minerals Commission would have encompassed most of the rivers and streams that are sources of water for the people.”
As Concerned Citizens Against Galamsey in the Mampong Traditional Area, they pledged to protect mineral resources in the area and resist any to destroy them.
“We are up in arms because we have an impinging responsibility to protect our naturally bequeathed forests and water bodies and ensure that the quality of the resources which also belong to succeeding generations as a matter of birth rights is not compromised or abused by greedy galamsayers and collaborators. We believe that there should be fairness in the inter-generational rights in how we use God-given natural resources and the environment. If we cannot improve upon what we came to meet, we dare not make it worse than what was handed over to us by our forebears,” they stressed.
