Health & Safety Committee of Inquiry set up to ensure mining sector reforms

Reports cite MAXAM in manufacture, storage and transportation breaches - Abu Jinapor

3-member committee completes fact-finding on Apiate explosion

Land minister to make fact-finding results on Apiate explosion public

Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Jinapor, has revealed that a health and safety committee on inquiry has been established to review the

Read full articlehealth and safety regime of the mining sector.

According to him, based on the report, the ministry is ready to institute additional measures to ensure transportation of explosives poses no risk to lives and property.

Speaking on the floor of parliament, on the measures government has put in place to ensure the Apiate incident does not happen again, Abu Jinapor said,

“Following the Apiate incidence, a health and safety committee on inquiry has been established to review the health and safety regime of the mining sector. In the interim and based on the report of the Minerals Commission after the incident and the three-member committee I established, we have put in place some new measures to prevent a recurrence of the incidence.

“Upon receipt on the report of the health and safety committee of inquiry if it becomes necessary we will institute additional measures to ensure that the transportation of explosives poses no risk to lives and property,” he added

Jinapor further indicated that the committee will be chaired by the Paa Grant University of Mines and Technology Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Richard Amankwah.

He also added that the report from the three-member committee set up to investigate the circumstances leading to the explosion at Apiate have cited MAXAM in manufacture, storage and transportation breaches.

“On Tuesday, February 4, I received a three-member committee. Mr Speaker the two reports established certain regulatory breaches on the part of MAXAM in the manufacture, storage and transportation of explosives.”

Background

Over five hundred people were rendered homeless at Apiate, a community near Bogoso in the Prestea Huni Valley Municipality in an explosion. The incident had about seventeen people dying and others severely injured.

All houses in the community, church buildings, stores and all structures collapsed, leaving residents in the community homeless.

The explosion was caused by a truck belonging to a mining service contractor MAXAM that was involved in a collision causing an explosion in the community.