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Government has announced that it will soon register all small scale miners across the country biometrically.

The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, John Peter Amewu, who made the announcement said this will help the Ministry to effectively monitor small scale miners’ activities.

“I can assure you that there is going to be a biometric registration of all small scale miners that would want to go into the field. We are putting in place measures to ensure that …we track at every point in time where you are mining..,” the Minister said.

“We are going to give them [small scale miners] a license and an ID card to make sure that of course with the ID card we can locate them,” Mr. Amewu added.

The Minister’s announcement comes on the back of a demonstration against government’s six month ban on all forms of small scale mining.

Hundreds of small scale miners in the Ashanti region on Tuesday demonstrated against the ban, arguing that the suspension had elapsed.

Addressing the concerns of the miners in an interview with Citi News’ Kojo Agyeman, Mr. Amewu however asked small scale miners to exercise patience, explaining that the ban will come to an end in six months.

“This ban is a six month ban and if you do recollect, it started somewhere in May and we expect it to end somewhere in October and so if they really have to adhere strictly to the directive, we should be expecting the ban coming to an end in October. I am expecting my good friends and small scale miners to exercise patience.

“I have had several discussions and engagements with the executives, and I will let them understand that small scale mining is the preserve of Ghanaians. They[Small scale miners] will definitely come back and mine and so they should exercise patience. We are putting in measures and these measures are going to make them come back…”

Government in April imposed a six-month ban on all forms of small scale mining as part of measures to deal with illegal mining, popularly referred to as Galamsey.