NDC Must Reposition On Galamsey

# It was during Mahama’s NDC Government, the immediate predecessor to the current Government, that Galamsey was at its worst and most intensive, and earnestly involved foreigners particularly Chinese with heavy machinery and Africans from neighbouring countries

# It was during that same NDC Government when some NDC people were involved in or facilitated Galamsey, never mind there were also some NPP and traditional leaders involved.

The NDC therefore enters the debate on the current Government’s efforts at curbing Galamsey on the back foot. What should the NDC do under the circumstances?

# NDC is burdened with the moral responsibility and duty to atone its portion of responsibility for the widespread environmental damage arising out of Galamsey. To date it has not done so and I cite two examples of equivocation and ambiguity on the issue

Three days ago Mr Akandoh, a Western Region NDC MP, gave the impression the NDC was sympathetic to Galamsey mining. He was reported to have said about the President: “A con man is somebody who told the people of this country that look, vote for me, if I come I’ll legalise galamsey, and when he comes back he bans even legal mining”. See https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/nana-addo-is-the-real-con-man-akandoh-returns-amewu-s-salvo.html

Last Saturday former NDC President Mahama said the NDC supported small scale mining, indeed small scale miners were part of the NDC Unity walk at Kumasi at which rally Mahama spoke, and that the NDC stood ready to share experiences in Government with the current Government in tackling the menace. However Mahama muddied the waters by falsely claiming the Government was applying shoot to kill methods, giving impression NDC was not taking the Galamsey issue seriously.

The NDC can atone its portion of responsibility for the widespread environmental damage by publicly supporting the Government’s efforts against Galamsey - without equivocation, without ambiguities.

We live in an era of climate change, which is devastating our lands, our waters, our atmosphere, and we need not add to those environmental burdens. Examples of such can be found in personal anecdotes at

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=647931&comment=17797842#com

And

http://sil.ghanaweb.com/r.php?thread=17773969

Let me quote from those links

Awotwe-Braun on Agbogbloshie: “the late 60s and in the 70s and 80s, the whole place was kind of muddy grassland with wide water ponds scattered in between the grassland. Now the place has become the most toxic place on this planet; a place where fish, crabs, rabbits, common hamsters aka Alata Nkura etc. used to live”

Abaa - bii abuzotyel on Upper West (edited): “the temperature read 45°c. but I doubt the temperature has been this high ever. I have already lost ten cows to the drought and so it is every year, not so much by reason of lack grass but thirst. Whatever little grass the cattle get to graze, there is simply no place to water them. The little mud they may have as water contains very high levels of mercury, thanks to the activities of galamseyers. What therefore accounts for the slow death of the environment here?

“Growing up in the nineteen forties, this region had a lot of green wooded savannah lands, with rivers, creeks, streams and even lakes. Notable water bodies included the white, red and black Volta criss crossing one another. During this time of the season, Dawalik or spring, the continuous flow of water would break, but each had sufficient volumes to last till the rains set in

“The vegetative cover would remain green throughout the year along the river banks to support animal life, getting browner and drier as you moved away. A variety of tree cover, the baobab, adansonia dictata, the shea tree, the dawadawa, the rose wood tree, and date palm were some if the prominent economic trees that supported human life. It brought the equilibrium to the environment, stabilising rainfall which mainly convectional. During the hot dry period, the trees and water bodies give off moisture through vapors to the atmosphere in sufficient quantities to condense in the higher cooler atmosphere to fall back as rain.

But today, through unbridled human activities including agriculture and recently through logging, the earth looks bare, parched with very low humidity, making rain-forming clouds impossible. Meanwhile, further north, BF, where I was yesterday, the people were getting ready to harvest groundnuts, rice and tomatoes they planted in January. BF was a semi desert in the 1960s when Northern Ghana was the oasis and breadbasket. What happened that we have reversed roles and climatic conditions?”

The NDC is eyeing votes in displaced Galamseyers by coupling them with legal small scale miners who are not the targets of the current Government campaign. The NDC may well get some votes but they would be blood votes because environmental degradation on the scale associated with Galamsey is tantamount to spilling the blood of Ghanaians and that of Ghanaians unborn.

*The author is a native of Ghana, resident in Melbourne Australia