The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has opined that a law be enacted to control the auctioning of implements confiscated by government from illegal small scale miners and also check the disposal of seized rosewoods.
His comments came on the back of information his ministry has gotten wind of that during auctioning the seized equipment’s and woods end up in the hands of same offenders.
In 2019, the government banned the harvesting, processing and exportation of rosewood which was in 2020 extended indefinitely by the then Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Mr. Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh.
But Mr. Jinapor, at a meeting with the sector agencies during his two-day tour of the Western Region, intimated that during auctioning, “the people who are behind the illicit trade find a mechanism to get people to front for them to buy the wood and they end up being exported.”
In light of that, he suggested that the disposal of rosewood when they are confiscated be interrogated, because if not done “we will have a problem.”
He added: “The law which amended the disposal of equipment used in small scale mining, we probably should look at that. Which is that when equipment used in illegal mining are confiscated, by law those equipment cannot be auctioned to private individuals.
“They have to be allocated to public institutions. So, the excavator parked, I have no legal right to auction them to a private individual so that the owner cannot find front to participate in auctioning to buy the excavator and turn around to sell it to them.”
