The Government of Ghana has cancelled a programme it instituted to train small-scale miners on good mining practices in the country, Michael Kwadwo Peprah, Ashanti Regional Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners, has said.

According to him, the government, after training two batches of the miners, decided to cancel the programme without providing any reasons.

The government, as part of efforts to safeguard the water bodies and forest reserves from the activities of illegal miners (galamseyers) ordered that all small-scale mining activities be stopped as the sector is streamlined.

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), announced in July that the Government had provided an initial fund of GHS500,000.00 to start training the miners as a move towards helping fight the galamsey menace.

But speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM on Thursday, 10 August, Mr Peprah said: “If we are fighting the problem of galamsey then we should fight it holistically.

“As we speak some Chinese are still doing galamsey in Diaso, they are destroying the forests there under the protection of some unscrupulous security officers.”

He added: “Chinese are mining while Ghanaians have been ordered to stop, even the training programme the government started providing for small-scale miners has been cancelled, and, so, what are we doing to ourselves.

“The minister will need to explain to Ghanaians why the government has cancelled that programme.”