By Mustapha Jarju
Lamin Samateh, a Senior Program Officer Environmental Impact Assessment Program at the National Environment Agency (NEA) has stated that Mining companies in the Gambia are effectively mining for the Government.
Mr. Samateh made this remark on Monday during a Media Clinic program held at the National Environmental Agency office, Kanifing.
In his presentation, he said “Mining Companies in the Gambia are effectively mining for the government because the large percentage of the resources they earned goes to the government account. If the total money earned by the mining companies is a hundred dalasi, the government will take seventy dalasi and thirty dalasi will go to the Company.”
Considering the greater percentage of money earned through mining being given to the government, he said, has categorically cleared that the mining companies in the Gambia are helping the government in making money through mining.
However, he said going to mining villages like Kartong there is no commercial mining but the villagers are engaged in illegal sand mining, as some of them wake up as early as 4 am to carry on illegal sand mining.
“The other thing that we need to make clear is, mining anywhere in the world is destructive. You are taking and never replacing but the unfortunate part is the landscape we have is very small and in recent years we have seen an unprecedented level of infrastructural development with high pressure on sand mining. We don’t have means of supplying it that is why we are facing this entire problem,” he stressed.
He, therefore, suggested to the government to create a way that will protect the Gambia mining sites considering the level of the country`s infrastructural development. Meanwhile, Mr. Samateh added that the country does not have the landscape to supply all the mining needs.
