On Monday, 6th June 2022, President Akufo-Addo commissioned one hundred (100) mercury-free gold processing equipment, commonly referred to as Gold Katcha, at a ceremony held at the Independence Square, in Accra.
The equipment extracts gold from the ore without the use of mercury, which has been the practice for several decades.
This equipment also has the capacity to recover over ninety percent (90%) of gold from the ore, and, therefore, give small scale miners much more gold than they would have obtained from the traditional method of using mercury.
”It is our intention to procure some three hundred (300) more of these equipment, under the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme, for use in the various communities where the Programme is being implemented.
Our goal is to eliminate gradually, but as soon as possible, the use of mercury in small-scale mining, and help realise the objectives of the Minamata Convention on Mercury,” the President while speaking at the commissioning.
The mercury-free machine consists of a jaw crusher that crushes bigger rocks from 40 millimetres (mm) and above, reducing them to three millimetres; a milling plant which crushes the particles further into fine particles of about 100 microns, and a concentrator or gold catcher (kacha), where the fine gold particles are washed and aggregated.
It has a high gold recovery rate of 90 per cent compared with the other methods that do between 30 per cent and 35 per cent of gold.
With the gold kacha machine, mining processes such as scrubbing, crushing and milling happen at the same time as the concentrator washes the ore body and recovers both fine and coarse gold.
Additionally, the machine has a capacity ranging between 1.5 throughputs per hour (3tph) and 300 throughputs per hour (300tph).
The President maintained he was not against small-scale mining but illegal mining.
“Let me reiterate once again, a clear message. The Akufo-Addo government is not against small-scale mining. On the contrary, the government is in full support of responsible, small-scale mining activities as they provide avenues for Ghanaians to participate in the mining industry and contribute substantially to the development of our gold sector,” he said.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
