CSOs Call on Government to Internalise ECOWAS Directive on Miningby Samuel Akapule, GNA
Civil society organisations (CSOs) and regulatory bodies have called on government to internalise the provisions of the ECOWAS Directive on Mining in Ghana.
The CSOs and the regulatory bodies drawn from the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions made the call at a stakeholders’ forum organised in Tamale.
They said the Free Prior and Informed Consent principle and the Polluter Pays Principle, which are among the provisions of the ECOWAS Directives, would compel mining companies to respect community rights. According to the group, the management of natural resources will improve if government adopts and implements the Directives.
The forum was organised by Wacam, a human rights, environmental and mining advocacy NGO, in collaboration with the CentresforPublic Interest Law and Environmental Impact Analysis with support from IBIS Ghana, Care Ghana and Ford Foundation.It was aimed at seeking stakeholders’ views and inputs to develop a sample mining bill to influence legal reforms in the mining sector in Ghana. The intended reforms are supposed to reflect the guiding principles and policies of the ECOWAS Directives on Mining which Ghana is a signatory to.
The stakeholders observed that the mining law presently in place does not only favour the mining companies, but also it ruins the livelihoods of mining communities The participants said they were not happy about the over-exploitation of the mining sectors by mining company’s particularlymultinational companies.
They however expressed optimism that if the government internalises the ECOWAS Directives and ensure their strict implementation, it would help address the numerous constraints in the sector and rake in more revenue for accelerated development.