The flag bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has pledged to deploy Artificial Intelligence to help fight illegal mining activities if he is elected president in the upcoming December 7 general elections.
As the guest of honour at the 3rd Annual Transformational Dialogue on Small-scale Mining at the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani, the NDC’s flagbearer said his government will use “AI to locate all small-scale mining and galamsey operations, track excavators, and geofence all concessions” to help coordinate and monitor activities within the small-scale mining sector to reduce environmental destruction.
He added that a special fund will also be set up to help provide a pool of mining equipment for sustainable exploitations in mining communities.
“A special revolving fund will be established with the private sector to provide capital and a mining equipment pool in each district where gold mining is prevalent. This will facilitate easy and affordable access to relevant mining equipment.”
The former president explained that his government will achieve its pledge by implementing his recently announced Ghana Mining Excellence Centre (GMEC), which he said is to be coordinated by UENR and UMaT [University of Mines and Technology].
“To support all these brilliant initiatives and ensure that we are implementing them as best as possible, I have announced the launch of a Ghana Mining Excellence Centre (GMEC), to be run initially for five years and which will be coordinated by UENR and UMaT.
“As I have envisioned it, the Centre will collaborate with scientists from other universities worldwide to implement joint research and innovation projects that will simulate green growth within the Ghanaian mining and minerals industry.
