Most ministers who were supposed to serve on the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) abandoned the Committee, the final report presented by the chairman has revealed.
The only ministers who remained a part of the Committee, according to Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng’s report, were the Ministers of Sanitation and Local Government and Rural Development.
The Committee was set in March, 2017 by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the fight against illegal small-scale mining.
Among the ministries which formed the Committee are Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR), Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Chieftaincy & Religious Affairs, Regional Re-Organisation and Development, Monitoring and Evaluation, Water and Sanitation, Interior, Defense and Information.
Among the tasks of the Committee was to sanitise and regularise small-scale mining activities in the various mining districts to ensure that miners work within legal framework.
But the Committee was dissolved shortly after the 2020 elections.
Committee Chairman Prof Frimpong-Boateng, who was Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, accused some elements at the Jubilee House of hampering the efforts of the inter-ministerial committee.
In his report, sighted by 3news.com, the respected heart surgeon listed abandonment of members as the first challenge his committee faced.
“Apart from the Ministers for Sanitation and Local Government and Rural Development, all the others abandoned the Committee,” he stated in the report, said to have been submitted on March 19, 2021.
“To make matters worse, the Chairman was personally attacked, vilified and framed for things he had not done.
“Such assaults came from many people, including some of the ministers who effectively left the committee.”
He cited Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, and then Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Mafo, as among ministers who deliberately worked against the committee.