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Illegal miners to vacate Obuasi mine - Mineral Commission

Government has on multiple occasions promised to restore law and order in various mining sites across the country facing threat from galamsey operators.

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The illegal miners, also called galamseyers, in February 2016 invaded the mining operations of AngloGold Ashanti leaving it with no choice but to petition the  International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) to restore law and order.

The government has on multiple occasions promised to restore law and order in various mining sites across the country facing threat from galamsey operators.

But the CEO of the Minerals Commission, Dr Toni Aubynn, says space has been created for the galamseyers and that he expect that they will away from the invaded mining site.

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“We have negotiated with them, created a space for them and we have found a place for them so I don’t know what else the government should do for a group like that and I hope they will reciprocate that by moving to safer place. We gave a deadline of Monday so I hope by Tuesday, we should have seen some significant movement,” he told Citi FM.

Dr Aubynn added, “If not all of them we would have seen some trend that is possible. The feedback I’m getting is positive. I’m hoping that by tomorrow we would have seen some positive outcomes.”

--Gold output rises--

Despite the troubles in the mining front with illegal miners, Ghana’s gold output rose to 1,993,850 ounces in the first six months of 2016 from 1,438,656 ounces in same period last year.

According to the Ghana Chamber of Mines, $2.4 billion was earned from gold in the last six months compared to $1.75 billion first six months of 2015.

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In 2015, the Chamber announced that mineral revenue of producing members fell nearly 14 per cent to $ 3.39 billion in 2015 down from $3.94 billion the previous year.

The drop in the mineral revenue was due to reduce production and the lower gold price as well as decline in shipments of manganese.

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