A group of licensed small-scale miners operating within the Sefwi Wiawso Traditional Area of the western north region has accused the paramount chief of the area, Katakyie Kwasi Bumagama II who doubles as a member of the Council of State for issuing instructions to his sub-chiefs within communities where mining is the major source of employment to extort huge sums of monies from the miners before allowing them to operate on Katakyie Kwasi Bumagama II lands.
A team of journalists who stormed the western north region upon intelligence gathered came out that the miners in sites visited in Sefwi Kwesikrom in the Bodi district, as well as Eliobu and Boisan communities in the Juaboso district, confirmed that one Nana Kwame Kaloo who is the chief of Kanchiabo together with Nana Mitaa the chief linguist to the paramount chief of the Sefwi Wiawso Traditional Council has alerted the small-scale miners to pay an amount of GHC2 million from each mining site to be given to Katakyie Kwasi Bumagama II in order to allow them to operate without any obstacles and hindrances.
This development per the information gathered from the western north region has raised heavy tension between the two chiefs who were allegedly instructed by the Sefwi Wiawsomanhene and the licensed small-scale miners who pay their mining operations fees to the various assemblies.
The information available to the media team who visited mining communities in the western north region revealed that the decision taken by the Sefwi Wiawsomanhene is clearly an agenda to collapse their small-scale miners’ businesses.
The small-scale miners contended that they will not pay this huge amount of GHC2 million to enable them to operate because they are not operating illegally as small-scale miners because they have the relevant and requisite mining documents that allow them to speak.
According to the small-scale miners operating within the Sefwi Wiawso Traditional Area if the paramount chief continues to harass them with his sub-chiefs on the alleged extortions, they won’t get it easy at all.
All efforts to reach Katakyie Kwasi Bumagama II proved futile.