Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, says a total of 157 seized excavators from illegal miners are currently in the custody of the government.
According to the Minister, his Ministry has taken inventory of the seized excavators at Adentan, Obuasi and Tarkwa under protection.
Taking his turn at the meet-the-press series, Mr Asomah-Cheremeh said his office is collaborating with the office of the Attorney General to ensure full compliance of the Minerals and Mining act.
“Adentan has 122 excavators, Obuasi has 26 excavators and Tarkwa has nine excavators. The Ministry is currently working on reconciling these figures which were given by operation vanguard and galamstop. But for now this is what we have counted at the sites mentioned,” he said.
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The Minister said the Criminal Investigations Department is still investigating Ekow Ewusi over the alleged missing excavators.
He, however, denied claims by the opposition National Democratic Congress that over 500 excavators are missing.
On job creation, the Minister said a total of 4,265 permanent jobs have been created at Obuasi mine since the New Patriotic Party assumed office.
He added that 14 community mining schemes have been launched for operations and they’re expected to generate 126,000 jobs.
Mr Asomah-Cheremeh added that so far the government has trained 4,500 small-scale miners on responsible mining across the country.
