The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has shut down a mining site belonging to former Mpohor District Chief Executive Asaah Mensah and one Obed Osei for allegedly engaging Chinese nationals in illegal small-scale mining operations and operating without an environmental permit.
A Deputy Director of Mining at the EPA, Harrison Afful, who led the Agency’s nationwide mining compliance operation in the Mpohor District, on Monday, May 18, said the operators, working under the name JKCem I AM Gold, were also found discharging untreated underground water into the open environment.
According to him, the act constitutes an environmental offence, and the operators would be made to face the law.
“We could count several Chinese nationals on site. They are the operators, that is the information we have for now. The application they submitted was for a small-scale mining operation. The law doesn’t allow foreign nationals to undertake small-scale mining operations. Per what we have seen today [May 18], the scope of the project goes beyond small-scale mining,” he said.
