The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, is advocating for more stringent punishments to be meted out to traditional heads, chiefs, and kingpins involved in the activities of illegal mining in the country.

According to the minister, dealing with persons like that in the way he is advocating, will go a long way in the fight against illegal mining in Ghana, reports citinewsroom.com.

Samuel Abu Jinapor made this known during the opening of a national dialogue on illegal mining in Ghana, adding that these leaders should not be let off the hook easily and should rather be the ones to receive the biggest hits in terms of reprimanding, all in an attempt to curtail this ragging menace.

“How do we name, shame and punish politicians, chiefs, religious leaders and people with money and influence who are promoters of this criminal cartel in this industry?” he stressed.

Also, the minister highlighted the concerns he had on the issue of, “What kind of enforcement regime is required which bites and does so without fear or favour?”

The National Consultative Dialogue on Small Scale Mining, which will end today, April 15, 2021, is expected to come out with a communiqué on the solution to the illegal mining menace.

It was opened by the president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

The two-day roundtable discussion forum is on the challenges confronting the small-scale mining sector with inputs from key mining experts, the Small-Scale Mining Association, the Coalition of Civil Society Against Illegal Small-Scale Mining, among others, forming part of it.

Already, some stakeholders at the ongoing National Consultative Dialogue on Small Scale Mining are proposing the strict enforcement of mining laws as one of the solutions to the many problems from small scale mining.