The Genesis of Ghana’s Illegal Mining (Galamsey) - Walking the Visionary Impaired Democratic Tough Road Since 1992

Recent warning of the Ghana Water Company Limited about a possible water crisis in Cape Coast and some parts of the Central Region due to ‘galamsey’ pollution of the River Pra (Agust 31, 2024: www.modernghana.com) is just a confirmation of existing empirical data predicting importation of drinking water in the country if some drastic measures are not taken to curb the menace.

The current work of the renowned journalist, Erastus Asari Donkor of JoyNews TV documentary that is titled as ‘Poisoned for Gold’ and all previous studies on illegal mining have indicated unacceptably high concentrations of mercury, cynide and other metals in the main River Bodies of Ghana such as the Pra, Tano, Offin, Odo, Ankobra etc. The economic cost of the galamsey damage to the Nation’s natural forests and lands is unquantifiable but can be estimated.

Significantly, the presence of unacceptable high levels of mercury and other toxic metals in Ghana’s fresh water bodies means a major operational risk for agriculture, health, education, macro and micro economy. Whiles these negative developments sends shock waves in the spine of ordinary well-meaning Ghanaians, nothing seem to move the political elite. After all, they think they have built economic empires with stolen money that may insulate them against the effect of the galamsey menace. You can import expensive water to drink but once mercury and cyanide enters the food chain, no one is save.

In a notoriously irritating democracy such as Ghana, whereas a conservative estimate of 400,000 dollars could fix say the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi, corrupt public officials will prefer to pay more than 10,000,000 dollars to participate in the African Games outside Ghana if Baba-Yara is not fit. Whiles schools and education offices lack basic infrastructure, every Regional Chairman of the two main political parties whichever is in government, owns a V8 that is operated and maintained at the expense of the Nation.

Furthermore, in a country where the short-cut to overnight riches is to become a politician and not an entrepreneur, many young people now finish school and increasingly want to engage in full time politics. This is because elected party executives whether at the constituency, regional or national level are adequately compensated than an engineer working in a mine. Once our democracy is tantamount to affluence for the few, industries will not grow and productivity will decline because all political decisions are geared towards self-interest.

Illegal mining or ‘galamsey’ has existed in Ghana since 1992 but its severity has been increasing constantly up till now. As documented by Third World Network (Ghana) in 2007 study about the effect of mining activities on host and surrounding communities, it was clear beyond the negative health impact that mining communities are worst off in terms of socio-economic development. Once some unscrupulous politicians across the political divide are cashing in on galemsey, the uninformed or ignorant youth despite the risk galemsey poses to public safety will be motivated by the political powers to engage in it.

No responsible Nation on Earth will agree for a few of its citizens under the pretext of unemployment to destroy the future of its unborn generations. Sadly, leadership and authority in Ghana seem to agree that galamsey is the way forward for lack of vision. It is therefore not surprising that none of the major political parties has prescribed any sensible solution in their manifestoes close to addressing galamsey. All manifestos prescriptions for addressing galamsey are a cover for the illegal mining and further wastes of public resources by setting up additional agencies or institutions.

In fact, the issue of galamsey would not have occurred if political leadership since 1992 till now had seen that grammar schools are irrelevant for the future of work, and every District should by now have state of the art Vocational school, Polytechnics or Technical Universities today would not be running courses such as catering, visual arts, political science, marketing etc. This is not to suggest that such courses are not important but they must be run by the mainstream universities whiles the technical schools run engineering, ICT, computer science, coding, programming, welding, etc.

How many leaders today even knows that many highly paid jobs are on adverts or jobs portals over several years because those with the required skills such as computer programing in JAVA, PYTHON, etc. are few. How many leaders today even knows China supplies 80% of the world market for garlic and it is possible for Ghanaian youth to take half of the market share. How many leaders today even knows that if say 100 Districts across Ghana have standard irrigation facility where rice, maize, garlic, onions, tomatoes and other food crops are grown locally all year round, inflation will automatically reduce to the minimum.

Sadly, if one considers that even in Accra, many police stations in Hatcho and others are temporal structures squatting on unauthorized lands meant for roads, no one would tell you leaders are sleeping. Most commercial vehicles in Ghana Park on the road because land planning is unable envision that population and roads are growing. Some Chiefs in Kumasi have to beg a public university to give them a portion of its unused lands for burial of its chiefs. This will only happen in a country where tomorrow does not matter, let us enjoy everything today, the next generation can die.

Global Dynamics of the Extractives Industry

Universally, it is agreed and tested by world powers after the 9/11 USA world trade center destruction that global power competitiveness hinges on controlling air space of sub- Saharan Africa, controlling Sub-Saharan Africa key resources linked to national security, and controlling the prices of Sub-Saharan Africa key resources. Despite centuries of exploitation, neglect and betrayal of Sub-Saharan Africa, the continuing potency of its forests, minerals and vast lands relevant for multi-purpose utilization, has left no option for global powers than to re-engage and strike respective strategic partnerships pacts with the sub-continent.

Relatively, the USA, Britain, France, and Russia through Official Development Assistance (ODA) has made significant investment towards development of Sub-Saharan Africa than China. Moreover, the West led by America and Britain has many oil production companies in the continent. The emergence of European Union EPAs or Economic Partnerships Agreements with individual countries such as Ghana, Kenya and others ensured that the EU countries were guaranteed of access to vital resources and services. The USA has also signed military defense cooperation agreements with many Sub-Saharan Africa countries in order to counter US security threats and that of China in the continent.

Interestingly, a new twist of francophone countries in the continent severing ties with France and making moves towards Russia has been observed recently. This is because many Sub-Saharan African Countries feel global powers have not than enough to develop them. The Emerging global power, China, is rather becoming more influential in Sub- Saharan Africa through compelling Chinese economic diplomacy and investment in development projects with both loans and grants.

Foreign Policies Towards Sub-Saharan Africa

Based on historical facts and current socio-economic data, global powers include the USA, UK, Russia, EU, China, and Japan. Foreign policy basically describes a country’s working guidelines and objectives towards other countries and agencies outside its geographical boundaries. The foreign policy of global powers therefore has significant implications for the future development of Sub-Saharan Africa. The key resources of Sub- Saharan Africa that connects with the interest of global powers include its forests, mining and land use.

Undoubtedly, the 1989 Washington Consensus Conditional Assistance and Investment Foreign Policy remains the most popular and consistent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Washington Consensus is a set of ten recommended socio-economic policy ranging from stabilizing fiscal discipline, reforming and refocusing subsidies to only health and education, allowing demand and supply to dictate interest rate, exchange rate liberalization, free trade, accommodating foreign direct investment, privatization of SOEs, deregulating barriers to entry and exit, and protecting property rights. All Western governments subscribe to this policy. Has this policy changed or remains unchanged?

Despite the popularity and consistency of the Washington Consensus, there are profound weaknesses of the policy in terms of Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) governance transparency in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to Collier (2010), Sub-Saharan African has the potential to develop itself from oil and minerals resource revenues but it is not clear if IOCs of America and Britain in Sub-Saharan Africa who have benefited from a non-transparent and corrupt MNCs tax regime are willing to change. Unfortunately, Sub- Saharan Africa oil windfalls have not reflected any change in the standard of living of the ordinary man (Shaxson, N. 2005).

After the 9/11 incident in USA, a worrying trend of the risk of shifting focus from economic development and democracy activities to a steadily increasing military engagements after the establishment of AFRICOM in Sub-Saharan Africa by Washington has been noted since the year 2000 (Campbell, J. 2013). However, the USA support to economic development and democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is currently active and no indication of budget cuts or winding up has been observed.

Through Official Development Assistance (ODA), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) is very active and has sponsored various development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa for several decades. In the view of Goodall, T. (2019a), apart from its home soil, the UK within a period of two years has deployed the highest number of its military personnel in Sub-Saharan Africa in order to support the capacity of national military forces to effectively respond to the security threats such as terrorism, humanitarian crisis, the illegal wildlife trade, and violations of human rights.

Based on the activities of China and Russia in the sub-continent, the EU Sub-Saharan security policy is shifting from stabilization towards deterrence by making huge investment in recent military procurements featuring long-range deterrence capabilities (Kluth, M. 2013). The EU Delegations in Sub-Saharan Africa nonetheless continue to support social and economic development projects.

The re-emergence of Russia in Sub-Saharan Africa after 2010 as its fastest growing trading partner anchored on affordable arms, non-conditionality of aid and seeming attraction of its political system to some nations all together still make the Kremlin a small player relative to the other global powers (Faleg, G. and Secrieru, S. 2020). Also, the growing Chinese influence in Sub-Saharan Africa has heightened security interest fears of Western powers led by the USA who views China as an emerging adversary in addition to Iran, Russia and North Korea (Goodall, T. 2019b).

In principle, China non-interference foreign policy means economic aid and investments with conditionality free principle (Aidoo, R. and Hess, S. 2015a). Even though Beijing’s non-interference foreign policy may have worked initially with Sub-Saharan Africa, the implementation of the policy since 2000 has been changing to reflect the changing dynamics of individual countries (Aidoo, R. and Hess, S. 2015b). Also, China non- interference foreign policy on paper is the opposite of capitalist countries but practically uses conditional assistance and investment principles to influence and gain access to Sub-Saharan Africa resources and markets since the year 2000 (Aidoo, R. and Hess, S. 2015c).

In fact, the Sino-African approach of China’s International Relations or foreign policy viewed by Sub-Saharan African countries as a win-win situation, has allowed Chinese SOEs to invest in trade and construction of infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa under the auspices of Chinese Development Banks and recently involved in peace keeping missions via UN framework in collaboration with the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) approval (Dietz, H. and Kolokouris, K. 2012). To cite Taylor and Xiao (2009), apart from the USA, China is now Africa’s second most important trading partner taking lead of France and the United Kingdom.

Jackson (2014) suggests that Chinese MNEs may contribute to jobs creation in Sub- Saharan Africa but it is not clear if they are contributing to skills transfer and shared learning among local employed staff or concerned with local communities welfare. This may be due to China’s over exploitative nature using Ghana as a case study. Documentary evidence points to how Chinese firms and individuals working with few unscrupulous locals have destroyed fresh water bodies and forests in Ghana.

The increasing variations in the local foreign policies of Sub-Saharan African countries is due to external control by global powers and influence of its local policy strategies (Akokpari, J. K. 1999). Until Sub-Saharan Africa stands firmly to decide and determine independently how foreign nations must engage it, global powers foreign policy will continue to be reactive towards its developmental challenges.

Forests, Mining and Land Use Nexus
Millions of rural households in Sub-Saharan Africa including women and children whether in crisis or food scarcity rely directly on forest products for a living and to supplement their cash incomes (Kaimowitz, D. 2003). Empirical research has however shown that industrial mining negatively affects forests, reduces food security among women, reduces

nutritional diversity among children, and contribute to the marginalization of smallholder farmers but provides employment and regular income among men (Wegenast, T. and Beck, J. 2020).

Mining activities also causes forests degradation, changes in land cover and habitat degradation leading to biodiversity loss, air, water and soil pollution (Tiamgne, X. T. Kalaba, F. K. Nyirenda, V. R. 2022). In the view of Ntsame, Ovono, and Nkoa (2022), natural resource rents including coal, oil, gas, mining and forestry reveal a negative and significant effect on income inequality in all sub-regions except Southern Africa.

The mixed results of the forests, mining and land use nexus of Sub-Saharan Africa requires further studies. Where lies the tradeoff between its vast expanse of land for military use, safeguarding forest livelihood resources for the vulnerable, and the need to generate sufficient national revenues for the infrastructure development needs of Sub- Saharan Africa.

Solution to Illegal Mining in Ghana
The economic gains from galamsey is nowhere near the gains of agriculture if there is leadership and strategy. Mining is done with technology and once any person lacks such standard technology, mining becomes unlawful even if a state agency by chance and without thought issues certificates to such monsters. There will be no ending sight for Ghana in terms of going to the IMF unless one decision is taken. Also, Ghana may be heading towards a civil war if the existing state of affairs continues. To avoid that there is the need for very urgent and drastic actions to be taken.

1. Community mining must be banned entirely and leave the business of mining to big corporations to undertake safe and responsible mining.
2. No political party whether NPP, NDC, CPP and so on can rescue Ghana from its economic woes. To stop the IMF cycle in Ghana, the current ‘crazy democracy’ must be jettisoned and replaced with a locally suitable system that will save this country billions of dollars. The savings alone from this reform will payoff both domestic and foreign debts, reverse depreciation of the cedi and create an avenue of strategic investments in irrigation and vocational training.
3. Develop a policy of skills acquisition in oil exploration technology, engineering, AI, coding, cybersecurity, big data science, computer programming in JAVA, PYTHON etc at all technical universities. Young lecturers should be given scholarships to study abroad and come back to train the young ones.
4. The appointment of the AG and Public prosecutions must not be done by the president or his ministers. This must be handled by the Ghana Bar Association who will compose a search committee including three Vice Chancellors of Public Universities in Ghana. The AG should have no option not to prosecute a case or issue a public bulletin as to why he or she cannot prosecute a case.
5. Initiate partnership with SARI and vaious agriculture faculties to be independent seed growers of the food crops we cultivate for consumption and export. Have a long-term plan on when the first tractor will be produced in Ghana?

Reference
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Aidoo, R. and Hess, S. (2015b). ibid Aidoo, R. and Hess, S. (2015c). ibid

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