Galamsey and the Failure of Those Entrusted with Local Power.

"When a house is on fire, the responsibility of the landlord is not merely to condemn the flames but to identify those who started the fire, those who fuelled it and those who stood by while it spread. Ghana's environment is burning, yet our response to galamsey appears to be more concerned with the smoke than the people sustaining the fire.”

Mr President, this ecological catastrophe demands decisive leadership, not political theatrics.

We must commit all our resources at our disposal to fighting this cancer before it destroys us all.

Because galamsey is no longer trapped. It is a major ecological catastrophe. Our rivers are not rivers anymore, they are open drains of mercury and mud. Our forests are craters. Our cocoa farms are graveyards.

My considered view, after listening to Samuel’s statement and the attempt to gloss over protests and real concerns, is simple: This is evil. This is evil. No human being created in the image and likeness of God should tolerate this.

God cares so much about the environment He created that if you can see what is happening in Ghana today children drinking poisoned water, farmers losing livelihoods, young boys dropping out of school to chase gold in pits and you can still eat, sleep and wake up as though all is well, then I am very sorry for you.

Permit me to read Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Mr President, that is Ghana today. In the name of so-called responsible mining, there is no leadership. Everybody is doing as they see fit. The Constitution is clear: the President holds our lands, our minerals, our rivers in trust for the people. What are we doing to ourselves? We are becoming less and less human.

Galamsey did not start today. It has existed for decades. But it was never at this scale until politicians and politically connected financiers started investing in it. We know those behind this. We know the chamfan operators, the excavator owners, the networks that move the gold. The Ghana Statistical Service data on school dropouts is not unrelated, we are raising a generation that sees no value in the classroom because the pit pays quicker.

Mr. President, you cannot talk about managing an economy when the foundation of that economy and its ecological integrity is being compromised. You cannot build a 24-hour economy on dead water.

If you want to fight galamsey properly, you must take on all political relations who are also involved. Failure to do that is a waste of everybody’s time. Justice must never be selective. Wontumi may be made a scapegoat, but he certainly cannot be the only one. There are undoubtedly many more Wontumis out there who must also be held accountable. We cannot sit back and watch a few selfish and greedy individuals continue to plunder and destroy our environment for their personal gain. The fight against environmental destruction must be impartial, consistent and uncompromising, regardless of who is involved or how politically connected they may be.

And this is where we must condemn ONLY the MMDCEs.

Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives in galamsey-endemic areas are either accomplices or incompetent. There is no third option.

How can an MMDCE live in a district where Pra, Ankobra, Birim, Offin are brown, where forests are entered daily by excavators, where chamfan machines roar day and night, and claim ignorance? You are the Chairman of the District Security Council. You control the Assembly. You know every chief, every youth leader, every road that leads to the mining site. If galamsey thrives under your watch, you have either taken a share, or you have failed so woefully that you have no business occupying that office.

Mr President, please sack them.
A District Chief Executive who watches his people drink polluted water and sits careless at his desk does not deserve to hold the President’s trust. If you cannot see what Erastus Asare Donkor sees from Kumasi, you are not fit to lead.

Mr. Erastus Asare Donkor remains the only person genuinely passionate and consistent in this fight. His camera has shown what official reports hide. If government wants to fight galamsey properly, he is the only one whose genuine advice should be followed unfailingly. Not the sanitized briefings from those who profit.

This fight will not be won with press statements. It will be won when a sitting MMDCE, a sitting party chairman, a sitting financier is arrested, prosecuted and jailed, no matter whose name he mentions.

Until then, Judges 21:25 will remain our national anthem: no king, no law, every man doing what is right in his own eyes.

And we will all drink the poison we permitted.

Mr President, I am very sorry.