Ebonyi govt advocates for shaft mining

 

The chairman of Mineral Resources and Environmental Management Committee (MIREMCO), and Special Adviser to Ebonyi state Givernor on Solid Mineral, Mrs Jacinta Nworie has solicited for underground mining in Ebonyi state.

Nworie made this request on Thursday at a workshop /training of the committee members with miners at the Cabinet office Abakaliki .

Speaking at the workshop, Nworie expounded on the need for miners to embrace underground mining also known as shaft mining instead of the surface mining presently being used by many of them.

She explained, that shaft mining is safer for both the miners, the community and the environment.

“While shaft mining is going on, agricultural activities will also be going on at the surface. But this open surface mining has a lot of risk involved. Some villagers go to pick remnants of the minerals and sometimes the excavator used in the mining crushes them to death”.

Nworie complained bitterly on the loss of lives recorded in the state as a result of open mining as many people get drowned in the open pits during the rainy season and urged the miners to always reclaim the mining site to avoid such dates.

She further warned that her committee will not hesitate to blacklist any mining company that fails to carry out the necessary reclamation exercise on their sites after mining.

“Some of the mine sites in my own place, Okposi in Ezza North have claimed the lives of so many children as a result of open pit. When rain falls a lot of water will store there and people will go there to swim and in the process get drowned”.

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