We’re So Narrow – Minded And Hypocrites

The illegal environmental degradation activity is not exclusive to the galamsey operators.

These days the only thing the average Ghanaians (especially, the politicians) talk about is the “galamsey” miners who are allegedly destroying our river bodies and lands.

Yes, we just woke up one day and saw these people knocking on our front doors and shores, digging everywhere for gold. And by the way, were the Chinese miners issued a Ghanaian visa by our immigration officials to do what?

And, our politicians and media people just discovered the polluted and chemically -saturated river bodies all over the country right after the 2016 election. Oh, holy cow! (Good job)

Folks, I’m not in any shape or form suggesting that we should allow selfish individuals to destroy our natural resources and water bodies with impunity—tafiakwa! All that I’m saying is why do we have to focus so much attention exclusively on the illegal gold- mining activities and ignore the other illegal human activities that are equally ( or more) destructive to our environment ?And, why do we have to wait until now to talk about this issue in the media and on airwaves when it has been going on over two decades ?

Our Ocean fronts and beaches:

First, let’s take our ocean and its beaches .Is anyone telling me that we’re taking a good care of it or making a good use of it? Can we honestly quantify how fast we’re polluting our ocean and its beautiful beaches? Can we get any tangible dividend from the ocean-fronts, instead of using them as our garbage dump and toilet collectors?

I wonder if we really know the amount of jobs our ocean can create or generate if we turned our ocean fronts into tourist attractions and holiday entertainment centers. Uh aha, ironically, after dumping the sewage and garbage into the ocean we’re foolishly and naively consuming the fish from it and we wonder why we are getting sick every day.

What about our forestry and wildlife?

For all the faults of our colonial masters and pioneers, they were nice and humane enough to sense the needs of the future generations. They thought the future generation is going to need woods for furniture and building constructions .They also thought a large amount of an arable land will be needed for food production etc. They didn’t stop there. To maintain the population of wildlife for future use ,they thought the reservation and conservation of forestry was needed in almost every district and locality in the entire nation to maintain the animal and plant species .Unfortunately, after sixty- years what do we see? Zilch, zero!

As we speak, with the help of the forestry officials and some rotten police officers, the chainsaw operators have destroyed our forests completely beyond rehabilitation. There are no more trees left in Ghana yet we haven’t discovered any alternatives. And there are no comprehensive regulations in placed to check this menace. In fact, they are destroying our river bodies in the process faster than gold miners. We think we have bottled and sachet water so we don’t need any river as a source of water for consumption—welcome to Ghanaian civilization! Wait until a severe drought hits Ghana. Don’t scratch your hair because this is very serious.

Now, you don’t have to be a religious kind to believe that nature(God) gave us all these resources for a purpose ,therefore if we continually destroy them with impunity and we still go to church every Sunday to pray to the Almighty for more blessings then we’re very ungrateful people. No wonder our prayers are not answered most of the time. Not only that ,since we paid nothing to own all of these resources, one day the nation and its people will be asked to account for their stewardship .And that can be huge price we can hardly afford. Oh, lordy, where are our religious leaderships? I surely don’t want to be around to witness that development.

The Galamsey workers:

I think the majority of galamsey workers are relative young so the government should aggressively design a program to train and finance these individuals to learn how to produce other equally marketable product like salt. More money could be made from salt mining than gold and it’s relatively cheaper to embark on such venture. Salt can be exported to all the West African countries that are ocean deprived. While we on it, we shouldn’t forget the “dog chain sellers”, highway vendors and self-appointed road contractors who are wasting precious human resource potentials just to make a buck.

Sand loaders:

These people are illegally causing soil erosion and taking the fertile part of the land for planting food. They’re armed and dangerous but little is said about their operations .Who is protecting these inhabitants who live and farm around these illegal sand- loading areas?

Safety First.

First to combat the problem of galamsey and other illegal environmental degradation activities, one has to have an understanding of the root causes of them. Every human being deserves to be safe socially and economically in their homes and communities.

Indeed, that’s the first priority of every government at every level: To keep the citizenry safe from harm and starvation in any form. To fail in that critical function of governance is to fail as a political leader or party. Improving the economics of a community goes hand-in-glove with improving public safety. In fact, they actually feed off from each other .While safety is always first, a community or society that doesn’t grow economically is not going to remain safe for very long—it simply can’t. So if the government wants to provide security for Ghanaians it needs to find solutions to these pressing underemployment and unemployment problems, ASAP.

I know the government is geared creating jobs (twenty century jobs)—I hope. Jobs that too many of our young galamsey enthusiasts and sand loaders don’t have the education, interest or experience to fill. So where do we go from here?

Attacking the galamsey workers and ignoring the other dangerous elements in the environmental degradation equation is a disservice to Ghanaians. Let’s be wary of all illegal and unregulated human activities that are destroying our environment. But the question is: Who is going to police these people when the entire nation is so corrupt and living as if there is no tomorrow? Your answer is a good as mine!

Certainly I know arresting the culprits—those who have been taking over our lands and polluting our river bodies as a way of life—is part of the solution, but ultimately the key to safer and sound neighborhoods, towns and villages lies in providing youth with opportunities to improve their financial circumstances and have a reason to be optimistic about the future.

This approach is not going to be easy, or it is not going to be happening overnight, but economic development is the only viable, long –term solution to the youth’s illegal activities that seem to be popping up everywhere these days.

However, I really don’t want to wish this fight on my worst enemy.

Until next time, Stay tuned. Be blessed, informed and educated.

Kwaku Adu-Gyamfi. (Voice of reason)

*The author is a social commentator.