Of course, my perception has been consolidated ; i knew it before, because the ripple of it was writ large. There was ineradicable williwaw circulating, before the tornado emerged to detonate the shore to the hilt. The din of it was so deafening, although it was lurking.
The thought was projected chronologically to toss the gladiator in order to reel him from the political prospect. As a fetish for the furtherance of the New Patriotic Party, he has been remarked by them, as the avatar of headache for their governmental games and intrigues.
They want to maximize and annex every agency to shrink and numb his political import trashily and chancily. But assuredly, the sinister forces shall be jettisoned and incapacitated to sully the subversive and malefic scheme of the NDC government against Chairman Wontumi.
Ghana did not have laws legislating small – scale mining, until the promulgation of the Small – Scale Mining Act, 1989, also earmarked as P.N.D.C.L 218. The nuts and bolts of this law was to regulate the small – scale mining sector by sanctioning the relevant license to prospective miners. As a result of the broadcast of this law, small – scale mining, starved of a license was considered interdicted and therefore, a criminal offence.
In 2006, all laws steering mining in Ghana were amalgamated as the Minerals and Mining Law 2006, Act 703, with the objective of providing a more eclectic legal architecture to police mining operations. Without a flip of thought, ‘ Akonta Mining ‘ is a registered mining entity under the backing of the full rigor of the law and as such, which was even corroborated by the Minister in his journalistic rendezvous.
It is arresting to appreciate that, a person or body who/which has been granted a Mining Lease by the Minister in the case of Chairman Wontumi is a holder of a mineral right, from the definition under section 111 of the Act. A ‘mineral right’ is therefore a ‘vested right’ that is acquired upon the grant of a licence or a Lease by the Minister.
Also, to unriddle the legal indecipherability here, the doctrine of vested rights is a legal principle that shelter the rights of individuals or entities that have attained a legal right or dividends in a property or contract.
This depicts that, once a right has been swung, it cannot be nullified by any subsequent law or regulation. In this regard, Emmanuel Buah cannot be clothed with any discretionary pull to mould and effectuate any regulation to screen that sector.
It is material to decipher that, after the approbation or applause of any mining lease to a person or body, there are structured and underlined parameters, which that person or body must be hitched to them also. In the pronouncement of Emmanuel Buah, he underscored fierily and irrefutably that, Chairman Wontumi has fractured those guidelines and in effect, he has phased out his mining leasehold.
It is requisite for someone to assert his/her assertions dashingly, but the substance of it, ought to be discerned lucidly. In fact, Emmanuel Buah got me into stitches as if i was at a facetious hippodrome.
The gravamen of Chairman Wontumi’s case was that, albeit the Minister had the power to suspend or revoke a Mining Lease or a mineral right in solidarity with Section 87 of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 [Act 703] (herein after referred to as the Act). Nevertheless, that command could only be exercised in accordance with the provisions of the Act; pointedly sections 68 (1) and (2) and 69 (1) and (2) and regulation 200 (3) of L.I. 2176.
The pronounced provisions mandate that, the battered holder of a Mining Lease or a mineral right be ‘first given a written notice’ and ‘one hundred and twenty (120) days’ to equilibrize the transgressions griped of. However, the Minister went phut to knuckle under this administrative procedure, thereby flouting the statutory provisions and article 23 and 296 of the Constitution, 1992, which guarantee administrative equitableness.
The law as we have known it must be implemented in all cases, with a grail of procuring justice and good governance in our constitutional dispensation. Some are positing that, the Minister made ‘ per incuriam ‘ and which is amenable to judicial review also, but it isn’t a masked fact that, the gambit of the Minister in backpedaling Chairman Wontumi’s leases was hatched up politically.
We are hipped to the fact of how some big shots of the NDC Party huddled together to have sub rosa powwow about how to neutralize him after their electoral triumph, because those vermin are yellow for his viperous critiques of their government, in case they clown around.
I am very sanguine that, Chairman Wontumi will resort to the utilization of the legal structures to replevy his abrogated mining leases from these bunch of churls and yahoos, for we recognize that, it is because Chairman Wontumi is their reptile, hence they cooked up this kooky and screwball cabal to merely ebb away his political appetite.
But the gospel truth is that, this complot flubbed its wielded imperium before, it even germinated. But, what the NDC government should apprehend is that, when the cuckoo cries for rain, it should not grumble when its feathers are forfeited in the process !
Source: Prof. Dinkum.
(The Buzzing Rapine Of Erudition)
E – mail : dinkumchoice@gmail.com
