The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, John Peter Amewu, has defended government’s decision to purchase drones worth $3 million to boost the country’s fight against illegal mining.
According to him, the drones, when acquired, can also help the country monitor and deal with the incidents of illegal logging in the country’s forest reserves.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Amewu said the plan to use drones is part of the government’s grand strategy to effectively clamp down on illegal miners whose activities have devastated the country’s land and water resources.
“These are quite complex, high-level specification drones that we want to apply,” he said.
Mr. Peter Amewu first announced the government’s plans to procure the monitoring devices in March 2017, but received some backlash from the public over the $3 million cost. But Mr. Amewu said the specification of the drone merits the cost. He told Richard Dela Sky that the drones had special features that would greatly boost the anti-galamsey efforts.
“These drones are non-visible when they are up in the air. They are sound-free and they can zoom down to about five meters even at a height of about 3, 000 kilometres. It can go to as far as about 27, 000 feet above sea level. It can do a lot of things and it’s very complex,” he said.
“We want to do things properly. We are looking at alternative ways of financing the two sets we’re getting. The batteries can last for about 14 hours. We can use it for a variety of projects, like the protection of our forests,” he added.
Meanwhile, Peter Amewu has said that the government may extend the current ban on small-scale mining by at least 3 months. He said although there have been some positive gains from the ban currently in force, it is unsatisfactory.
Source: citifmonline.com
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Are the drones going arrest the galamsey operators? That's waste of money. Looking for ways to dupe the nation.Hmmm
This is the beginning of the corruption. It's one of the ways they can use to "chop some". If NDC had done that, surely NPP will criticize. But now, they are all quiet. Indeed, politics is very dirty.
In fact the best to do is to rent them and no need buying them with such huge money. Does government have a Geoserver setup to store all that information already? and I wonder how much that is costing the tax payer at this moment. And correct me if I am wrong, I see drones already flying and producing aerial views of Ghana. Why not use them? The start of waste of Ghana money and an eventual corrupt deal in the making!
The minister needs to get his facts right! How can a drone fly to an altitude of 3,000km? No satellite even flies that high! How can a drone which "can go to as far as about 27, 000 feet above sea level" fly at 3,000km (btw 27,000 feet = 8.2km). The basic question is how does this technology fit into the overall monitoring strategy. Technologies alone do not solve problems.
No no Mr. Amewu, I tend to differ with you on this. What do we have TECH for? Recently I read of some students in Valley View working on a satellite why cant we use that? Not only this we have a lot of other collaborations that can help with all you have stated such as collaborating with any satellite owners to give us geospacial views of affected areas. These could be with the US government or even google. Now back to drones. Sure the capital cost is $3M. How much will maintenance cost monthly/yearly. What is the cost of proprietary parts? If for anything we can collaborate with the Army to give us some of their helicopters or surveillance planes to do such surveillance aerial surveillance. In addition to this, the most effective way to locate these galamsey operators is boots on the ground and effective campaigning and education on the environmental and long term effects of these illegal operations on the livelihood of everyone.
Great job minister. you have distignuish yourself as a good professional who focus on just achievements and delivery of what you were emplyed to do. Bravo However be very careful when signing contracts some of these guys can mees you up with ***barred word*** deals whiles hiding a lot from you. great job. i heard the rivers are even becoming cleaner again. to all of you ministers if you havent yet gone beyond yourslef to deliver an exttraodnary job you have failed already. Everyone should do something unique to seperate them from the incompetencey we saw in the maham boys ,so sit up or we tag you the mahama standard....INCOMPETENCE
this is how corruption starts trust me. all politicians are the same. lovers of money..they are all greedy.. 3million dollars???? are you serious???