Can The Military Fix "Galamsey" Issue In Ghana?

The joint military exercise “operation vanguard” is to fight "galamsey" in Asante, Eastern and Western regions. So the government will deploy about 400 soldiers to these regions in an effort to stop "galamsey." Honestly, I do not have an issue if the military can stop "galamsey" permanently. But my concern is that can the military stop "galamsey" forever? It is obvious the soldiers are going in these regions to cease, arrest, and patrol illegal mining centers. For how long are they going to do this? And how much will the government spend on the military every day to curb the problem?

Personally, I think the approach is too traditional. Sometimes we have to be creative with new ways of fixing our problems than using the usual approach. In addition to military intervention, we have also to find a clear solution for these illegal miners. We seem to focus less on what they say "galamsey is their source of livelihood." I understand the government wants to give them another job to support their life. The concern is that, do they want to do any other job other than mining? In our quest to help people, finding what a person wants is very important.

I have proposed this before; it is not wrong to do legal mining in Ghana. If one has the training to do mining so that they do not destroy our water bodies, they should be allowed to do mining. What if the government use the money he is going to use to provide them another job to train them to do proper mining? So that they will not destroy our water bodies? I mean, think about this. The government can even be the direct purchaser between these miners to buy their gold, diamonds, and others they are extracting. Instead of these miners selling our golds on the black market to Chinese, we can buy it directly from them and sell them at the international market for our country's profit.

So many solutions have been offered in addressing galamsey, but the best has not been chosen yet. You can't stop what some people like to do just because you are sending soldiers and police to the mining sites. You find the solution by considering what the "galamseyers" want and what they country at large want. In that way, you can draw a concrete solution to fix the problem.

The government is not yet there to provide a permanent solution to "galamsey."