Founder and the leader of the Liberal Party of Ghana, Percival Kofi Akpaloo
The founder and the leader of the Liberal Party of Ghana LPG, Percival Kofi Akpaloo, has promised to restructure the small-scale mining(galamsey) business to make it more effective, environmentally friendly and responsive to the needs of the host communities when he wins the December 2024 general election.
He said the restructuring would also aim at making the activity a job creation avenue for the youth, especially those in mining communities.
“I believe we must regulate small-scale mining to protect the environment and ensure safe mining so that the youth in those communities can have a source of livelihood for themselves and their families,” Kofi Akpaloo exclusively told Neat FM.
He further stressed that he would also institute additional measures to protect the environment while ensuring that small-scale miners operated legitimately without police interference.
Under the next LPG government, he said, graduates and experts in mining would be deployed to mining communities to train and assist small-scale miners on best mining practices to help eliminate accidents and the hazards associated with illegal mining.
Kofi Akpaloo said it was the right of people in mining communities to harness the benefits from the resources bequeathed to them by nature with the help of the government.
He assured the people that the next LPG government would create the opportunity for miners to have their gold refined in the country to help boost the economy.
“To add value to their products, we must, and we shall refine more gold for export. Let me assure you that we will involve the Bank of Ghana in certifying quality refined Ghanaian Gold.