In his speech, the Director of Operations for GNASSM, Mr Emmanuel Yirenkyi Antwi, said the 18 month ban on small scale mining has not changed their focus on working with government to find a lasting solution grounded in self regulation by the industry players.

He said the ban should be on illegal mining adding that regulated and responsible mining using sustainable methods creates wealth for indigenous entrepreneurs, improves livelihoods and promotes socio-economic atmosphere in communities while contributing to revenue generation in the form of tax payments.

He expressed gratitude to the President, His Excellency, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his government especially the IMCIM for ending what he  described as the "soon soon" mantra with the launch of the road-map to the long overdue lifting of the ban.

He also congratulated the Operation Vanguard and the "National Task Force" siting the visible improvements in the river bodies polluted by illegal dredgers and urged the resourcing of the task force and a strengthening of the country's borders to monitor equipment that come into the country.

He said the association is looking forward to registering non members and asked all small scale miners to join them.

Mr Antwi also made known the decision to license the  miners and drew the attention of government to cost of transporting equipment for the fixing of tracking devices urging them to do this at the various mining sites.

The flagship software of the association, Optimum RM (Optimum Responsibility Mining) has also been designed to enable small scale miners to capture and store data on various activities such as where ore is mined to where it is stored, how much labour has gone into it as well as information on child labour and so on.

He added that members who go against the rules of the association will be penalized, pointing out that the Minerals and Mining Act has enough regulation for the sector. "When mining is compared with farming, it is the most regulated sector. It happened that enforcement failed. We are know awakened and this will not happen again" he said.

An outline of the association's self regulation and self policing policies was given as follows; the peer to peer review mechanism through "co-ordination mechanism" platforms, the  use of technology to monitor compliance, mining and production matrices for future data driven decision-making, the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Minerals Commission to streamline their regulation drive, advocate for the production of ecological gold (gold mined without the use of harmful chemicals) and the use of Mine Management Committees and compliance officers to monitor the activities and  compliance of members at mining sites.

Mr Godwin Amarh, the General Secretary of GNASSM said every small scale miner is being encouraged to be responsible for the areas they are working in, in order to monitor illegal activities and thus eliminate the illegalities that led to the ban. "They have the responsibility to ensure that their river bodies are safe".

He said that the Task Forces have always collaborated with the Operation Vanguard and not worked against them saying the the O.V will not be there forever.

The press conference was attended by some national executive members of GNASSM: Mr Kevin Collins Kusi, National President; Mr Samson Wiredu, Vice Chairman of the Ashanti Region Chapter; Mr Baba Alhaji Ahmed, National Organiser, other members of the association, Members of the Ghana Exporters Association and the media.