Economic Fighters League criticises approval of 6 mining leases, calls for bigger state stake in Ghana’s gold

In a statement issued on August 5, after Parliament approved the leases, the pressure group claimed the agreements would allow mining companies to extract gold from more than 300 square kilometres of land for up to 25 years without delivering sufficient returns to the Ghanaian people."If the obstacle is technical know-how, why not declare a four-year moratorium on new large-scale concessions, establish specialised mining and mineral engineering programmes, and train the brilliant young Ghanaians who every year demonstrate extraordinary talent in our schools and national science and quiz competitions?"It proposed a four-year moratorium on new large-scale mining concessions to allow the country to develop local expertise through specialised mining and mineral engineering programmes.