Police/Military to descend on mineral operators

Category: General Created on Friday, 01 June 2012 15:48 Published Date Written by GNA Hits: 199

Takoradi, June 01, GNA – A police cum military taskforce would soon descend on mineral operators who flout the mineral laws and regulations on safety and destroy the environment with impunity.

Deputy Superintendent of Police Opoku Kodua, the Commanding Officer of the Police Rapid Deployment Unit, said operators who ignored the minerals laws would be prosecuted.

He was addressing mineral operators drawn from the Western and Central regions at a day’s workshop on industrial mineral compliance in Takoradi.

The fourth in a series of such workshops was held on the theme “compliance in the industrial mineral sector; the role of the mineral right holder.”

Mr Kodua said the lives of the operators were very crucial and that it was important for them to use protective gadgets.

  He said the police would see to the enforcement of the minerals and mining law to the letter in order to bring sanity into the mineral and mining operations in the country.  

Mr Kodua said the taskforce would work closely with the Inspectorate Division of the Mineral Commission and asked the mineral operators to see the taskforce as a stakeholder in the mineral operations.

 Mr Desmond Boahen, Inspector of Mines, appealed to the operators to reclaim the land on which they operate in the event of folding up so that the land does not become waste.

Mineral operators are involved in kaolin, quarry, sand and stone and salt mining.