Supportive of meaningfully fighting “galamsey” in Ghana

“Galamsey”, a coined and come-to-be nationally accepted Ghanaian word for illegal small-scale mining has for the past several years become an insurmountable challenge to the successive governments. It has become a national headache needing a quick effective solution to kill it yet, the governments lackadaisically continuously fail to apply the correct medication and dosage to cure it, leaving it to develop and spread all over, becoming a terminal cancer.

Galamsey as I have always bemoaned its ramifications and the propensity to indulge in it by many a Ghanaian including government officials, has been wreaking irreparable damage to the ecosystem of the country.

It is devastating the nation’s water bodies with palpable evidence of all the once-clear flowing big rivers turned into flowing rivers of mud. Farmlands, cocoa farms, arable and fertile lands, virgin forests, and you just name it, have all become miserable victims to the illegal small scale and alluvial mining frantically ongoing in Ghana.

For the sake of the health of Ghanaians, both present and unborn, I support any meaningful steps taken to wipe off that national galamsey pandemic without any complaint or rallying in support of any arrested or arraigned culprit.

Therefore, why should the writer shed tears for NPP Ashanti Regional Chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako aka Chairman Wontumi, an overly known small scale miner without any shred of concern about the national alarm raised about the devastations caused by galamsey to the nation?

He is not a scapegoat here but clearly a culprit, even if he had been granted licensed concessions in the forests and rivers where he executed his galamsey activities. He knew how he was damaging the rivers, forests, and lands by his ruinous activities in search of massive wealth to himself but at gargantuan irreparable cost to the nation.

How I wish President John Dramani Mahama and many other NDC gurus who declared support and resources for galamsey could also be arrested and prosecuted, similarly as happening to Chairman Wontumi. Were they not those that assured galamseyers their support in case they won the election, knowing very well the disastrous effects of galamsey activities in Ghana?

Galamsey has affected the treatment and production of potable water to many communities in Ghana, coming at a quadruple or so cost to the Ghana Water Corporation.

Why should we sit and watch like a hungry dog sitting behind a bar of soap while we have been warned by experts that a few years down the line, Ghana will lack potable water and will be obliged to import water?

Could we have available money to import water, an essential commodity, on top of our many unmet necessities?

Many a Ghanaian does not care if it will take the military to effectively stop the illegal small scale and alluvial mining going on in Ghana with the involvement of both local and foreign nationals, especially, the Chinese.

There are many others including government and public officials inextricably doing galamsey in Ghana. This is an open secret. They must all be arrested or stopped.

Finally, the government must stop any further issuance of licenses to people to do galamsey, thus, no further legal or illegal small-scale mining.

Small scale mining is a small scale mining no matter its form and shape.

It is for this desire of effectively stopping galamsey, but unable to, by the governments, that many wish to have Kennedy Agyapong as future president of Ghana despite his deplorable quick temper and vituperations. He has the mindset of a military, although a civilian.

Stop galamsey to save the lands, forests and water bodies, o ye visionless leaders without clout!