<\/p>\n
President Akufo-Addo enquiring about the operations of the Mercury-Free Mineral Processing Technologies <\/strong>from Martha Amoako at the commissioning. Looking on is Samuel Abu Jinapor<\/strong><\/p>\n PRESIDENT AKUFO-Addo yesterday commissioned one hundred new gold processing equipment called \u2018gold katchas\u2019 at the Independence Square in Accra.<\/p>\n The introduction of the new equipment is to help sanitise Ghana\u2019s artisanal, small, medium and large-scale mining industry.\u00a0 It can process sand, clay and hard rock.<\/p>\n The President, in a speech, assured stakeholders in the small scale mining industry that his administration was committed to ensuring clean mining in the country, contrary to claims by some sections of society that his administration was against the small scale mining, popularly known as \u2018galamsey\u2019.<\/p>\n According to him, his administration owed the current and future generation of Ghanaians a duty to ensure responsible mining to protect the country\u2019s water bodies and natural resources.<\/p>\n That, he said, was because the small-scale mining industry was an important contributor to the nation\u2019s revenue generation efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), in the past seven years other than in 2014, the mining sector has provided the largest tax receipts.\u00a0 Small scale mining\u2019s contribution to the growth of this sector has been incremental since its regularisation in 1989, and today, small scale mining accounts for some 40% of our gold exports and provides job opportunities and sources of livelihood and income for many Ghanaians,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Charge<\/strong><\/p>\n In spite of its major revenue contribution, the President observed that \u201cit is also not a secret that the sector has been unfortunately, a major vehicle of environmental pollution and land degradation, including the threat posed to life by the use of mercury in the recovery of gold and its subsequent release into the eco-system.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe solution to this however, cannot be, cannot lie, in banning small scale mining which has been with us since time immemorial,\u201d President Akufo-Addo said.<\/p>\n He said his administration\u2019s agenda \u201cis to ensure that mining is carried out in a responsible manner as was done by our ancestors and in line with international best practices and conventions across all levels of operation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis will in addition to eliminating the associated negative practices, ensure that small scale mining supports government\u2019s drive to optimise the earning from mining in pursuit of development, progress and prosperity for all Ghanaians,\u201d President Akufo-Addo added.<\/p>\n On his part, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, indicated that many small-scale miners relied on mercury to extract gold from ore, a practice he said \u201chas serious environmental and health impacts on communities in which they are used.\u201d<\/p>\n Apart from contaminating water bodies and destroying aquatic life, he noted that the high exposure to mercury by inhalation could result in damage to the nervous, digestive and immune systems.<\/p>\n \u201cIn children, for example, exposure to mercury can cause physical and mental disabilities. The experts have warned of dire consequences if urgent action is not taken to eliminate the use of mercury in small scale mining,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is for this reason that the world adopted the Minamata Convention on Mercury, which Ghana ratified on March 23, 2017, under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo,\u201d Jinapor noted.<\/p>\n Under the Convention, state parties are to take measures to reduce, and, where feasible, eliminate the use of mercury in artisanal and small-scale mining.<\/p>\n It is to achieve such aims that the gold katchas have been manufactured to specifically remediate mercury contaminated areas, recovering significant quantities of gold in the process.<\/p>\n \u201cScrubbing, crushing and milling happens at the same time as the concentrator washes the ore and recovers both fine and coarse gold.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mining plants have incredible level of efficiency and has a capacity that ranges from as little as 1.5-3 throughput per hour (3tph) through to 300 throughput per hour (300tph).<\/p>\n \u201cThese also have high recovery rate (90%+ gravity recoverable gold) compared with the other methods that recover just about 30-35% of gold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n BY Charles Takyi-Boadu<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Akufo-Addo enquiring about the operations of the Mercury-Free Mineral Processing Technologies from Martha Amoako at the commissioning. Looking on is Samuel Abu Jinapor PRESIDENT AKUFO-Addo yesterday commissioned one hundred new gold processing equipment called \u2018gold katchas\u2019 at the Independence Square in Accra. The introduction of the new equipment is to help sanitise Ghana\u2019s artisanal, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1113224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[430,6564,274,1336],"class_list":["post-1113221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-gold","tag-katchas","tag-nana","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1113221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1113221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1113221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1113221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}