Features
Effective monitoring of mining
The environment constitutes an essential part of the earth requiring every person to pay serious attention to its protection, so as to be able to keep to what is known as sustainable development for mankind.
In fact, without an effective environmental protection, the earth on which we live will not be able to sustain itself for the existence and growth of mankind, as well as other things that depend on the environment. It is for this reason that all stakeholders need to come together and ensure effective strategies that would make it possible for all inhabitants on the earth to have their interest protected as far as guarding the environment is concerned.
This means that we need to devise strategies that are workable and are result oriented, so that the ultimate results will be beneficial to mankind and all other inhabitants on the earth. In this regard, all species ought to be protected in line with the desire of everyone to have the environment adequately and effectively protected. The various strategies needed here must be seen to be protecting the interest of all stakeholders.
STAKEHOLDERS
The stakeholders in this matter include miners, mining authorities and organisations, regulatory bodies like Environmental Protection Agency, Local Assemblies, Ministry of Environment, the Government, as well as individuals in organisations that make use of the enviroment through the various activities they undertake.
In connection with this, some high level seriousness is needed. Lack of seriousness will mean that the desire to address the issue of environmental protection will just serve as a talk shop but not serve as any practical way of addressing the matter, which is so essential for the survival of mankind and all other entities that dwell on the earth.
Government as a stakeholder must come out with policies on the environment, so that everyone in the country will share in its implementation. In the same way, the Ministries of Lands and Mineral Resources, and the Environment will all have to play a critical role in ensuring that policies are made workable and implemented well to the benefit of all stakeholders.
MINISTRIES CONCERNED
The Ministries concerned must, therefore, concern themselves with rigid coordination and implementation of policies and practices that will help preserve the environment.
Similarly, miners in all parts of the country must be closely monitored, so that no irresponsible behaviour in mining will be experienced anywhere in this country. Each stakeholder and implementing agency ought to show seriousness towards protection of the environment.
This means that the stakeholders will have to be groomed in crucial capacity building to make them more effective than ever before.
In all this, monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) becomes essential since, as far as the environment is concerned, the EPA is an important implementing agency.
EPA AS ESSENTIAL BODY
The EPA is an essential body in Ghana that ought to be given the support needed, so it can effectively monitor all activities that have an impact on the environment.
It is in light of all these, that, we are happy to hear about efforts being made by the EPA to work towards environmental protection. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of procuring more drones to boost its operations in mining communities.
It is important to note that the Agency is currently training its staff in the use of drones to monitor mining in their operational areas. The monitoring cannot be carried out with mere observation of people around but ought to be done through devices that can provide general overview within a short time, regarding the nature of mining that is taking place.
RE-TOOLING
Mr Adarkwa Yiadom, Obuasi Area Manager of the EPA, who made this known said the Agency was currently on re-tooling to empower the staff to effectively undertake their mandate. Re-tooling is important because without it, new devices and tools cannot be obtained to replace old or worn out gagdets that are needed for effective monitoring.
Mr Adarkwa Yiadom was speaking at a day’s workshop to sensitise stakeholders in mining communities to the new approaches to address their grievances and strengthen their relationships with mining companies operating in their communities.
WORKSHOP
The workshop was organised by the Centre for Social Impact Studies (CESIS), a Research and Advocacy NGO, to sensitise members in mining communities to the Mine Site Assessment Tool, which had been developed by the Centre.
Even though re-tooling for EPA is important, the training should not end up just like that. A training workshop is important but at the same time evaluation is equally essential to ensure that the purpose and aims of training are achieved.
CONTINUOUS EVALUATION
Similarly, when the monitoring takes actual implementation, there must be continuous evaluation to let all stakeholders know that monitoring of the implementation plan is made effective for the purpose of Ghanaians in the country.
In conclusion, the need to protect the environment cannot be taken for granted but should be made workable for the country. The use of drones by the EPA to monitor activities affecting the environment is important that is why every individual ought to be actively concerned about the issue, so as to bring about effective sanitisation of the environment for the good of the country.
Contact email/whatsApp address of author:
Pradmat2013@gmail.com (0553318911)
By Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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