ILLEGAL MINING CANNOT BE DEFEATED IF THOSE WHO MATTER ARE NOT INVOLVED IN ITS FIGHT

At the risk of sounding insentient to the plight of the millions of Ghanaians whose lives are at risk for consuming water and food substances contaminated by the hazardous chemicals used by illegal miners, I would like to emphasize that discussions surrounding this galamsey issue are only touching the surface.

Much as we welcome the calls for an embargo of a sort on mining activities by the President, we also believe the approach being propounded is not pragmatic or effective enough to deal decisively with the issue.

Brute force has been applied over the years to weed out illegal miners, it never worked. We placed a ban on small scale mining for two years, galamsey activities went up.

Operations GalamStop, Vanguard and others were introduced but the results were never to write home about. Forums were held about how best to deal with illegal mining and nothing concrete came out of them.

These demonstrations being held in Accra will achieve very little results. The people who are in the forests doing galamsey care less about the ‘noises’ we are making in Accra.

They don’t seem to appreciate the effects of their actions on the environment and lives as well. We seem to be crying more than the bereaved in Accra.

If we really want to fight galamsey, we should do it with the following people; chiefs, communities where the mining takes place, the leadership of organized labour, those doing the mining themselves, MMDCEs, the two biggest political parties, CSOs, clergy, the media with the government spearheading the fight.

No amount of military or security interventions can solve these challenges. These miners find ways to bribe themselves through the security system and get back to do the work.

It is important to stress that the communities where these illegal mining activities take place must own this fight. That should be the prerequisite for a successful operation.

If Akufo-Addo is forced to ban all mining activities in Ghana, the opposition NDC would be the biggest beneficiary as happened in the 2020 elections, and that would be postponing the challenge because the party that may go into opposition because of galamsey will ride on same to come back to power.
We will, therefore, be back to ground zero.

Let us not be blinded by our emotions over these discussions. Let us expand the scope of the discussion by involving all those who matter in the mining space, and a true, lasting solution will be found.

P.K. Sarpong,

Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place.

Richard Koomson | mediacentralonline.info | Ghana
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