Gov’t Earns Praise For Laying New
L. I. Repealing Forest Mining Powers
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) with interest in the environment, have heave a sigh of relief after government laid in Parliament, a Legislative Instrument (L.I.) aimed at repealing forest mining powers previously given the President.
They have also commended government for keeping to it campaign promise and doing what it said it will do while in opposition.
The expression of appreciation follows Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources with additional responsibility as acting Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, decision to take steps aimed at repealing L.I 2462 which allowed mining in forest reserves.
This was after various CSOs pilled pressure on the government to do away with the law which they argued was unwarranted and designed to wipe out the country’s forest reserves through mining.
Passed in November 2022, the Instrument gave the President authority to grant licence for mining in forest reserves which many CSOs argued encouraged illegal mining notoriously known as galamsey.
The Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) (Revocation) Instrument, 2025 will permanently deny the President of unilateral powers to sign mining permits in forests. It was laid on Friday October 31, is expected to mature in 21 days.
Reacting to the development, Daryl Bosu, the Deputy National Director of Environmental NGO A-ROCHA Ghana said they are excited to hear that steps are being put in place to see to the revocation process.
“You can actually hear the excitement in my voice that I am very happy to speak to this matter. First of all I need to acknowledge and commend the progressive step by the government to revoke LI 2462 in its entirety. This is definitely a positive step as you know when LI 2462 was passed in November 2022, it really came with a lot of dissatisfaction from civil society, several other professional bodies across the country and also because it gave the posture of a government that was willing to auction off all of it forest reserves for mining.
But we have now come to the system where the government says we are no longer going to condone such an attitude but we are going to use a more progress way to assess whether an area must be mined or not and looking at a true percent on average in this country. I think this a progressive step and we really commend the government for this”, he said on TV3’s News 360 bulletin on Friday October 2025.
Bosu called on the various agencies under the Ministry to take note of the incoming revocation and respect it change.
“That said, I think when revocation takes place or takes effect it means that we need to take steps to ensure compliance and every agency, Forestry Commission, Minerals Commission and all other state agencies must take this into consideration and try to align which for me is the most important aspect to this whole process we are going through right now.
It is an LI so it is going to have 21 sitting days in Parliament and after that it takes effect which I believe even the previous administration initiated a process like that just that Parliament could not have the opportunity to sit through”.
His expectation is that, both sides of Parliament will give the L. I. the necessary support to complete the process.
“So we are really excited that this government keeping to its words has been able to take this step and we expect that the other Members of Parliament to support the process so that we can have a successful revocation then we can take it up from there. Right now we need to have a national strategy to protect our forest reserves and this is where it begin so we are really excited to see this happen eventually”, he added.
By Gifty Boateng