We must not lose fight against galamsey

The current hullabaloo over some missing excavators seized from some illegal miners sums up the challenges in the country’s fight against illegal mining, otherwise referred to as ‘galamsey’.

Indeed, notwithstanding the difficulties, the government must be commended for the efforts it has made so far in stemming the tide of the galamsey menace, including the setting up of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Mining and a military/police joint task force, Operation Vanguard, in 2017, at great cost to the nation.

The task force made up of an initial 400 security men from the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) and the Police Service who were divided into three groups to cover the Ashanti,
Eastern and Western regions, were supplied with new patrol vehicles and other logistics to enable the members to perform their operations with urgency and speed.

While at the post, members were also provided with accommodation and food, in addition to monthly allowances to boost their morale in the delivery of their assigned tasks.

Those provisions, certainly, did not come cheap.

The government took the fight against illegal mining a step further by temporarily banning any form of small-scale mining in January 2017 to sanitise the sector. That move threatened to make the government of the day unpopular, but it stuck to its guns till the time was ripe (December 2018) for the ban to be lifted.

The media campaign against the menace, with the formation of the Media Coalition against Galamsey in April 2017, also gave impetus to the ‘war’ against the destruction of our forests, farmlands and water bodies.

While the media brought to the fore the arrest of illegal miners, including Ghanaians and foreigners, by Operation Vanguard, little can be said about the prosecution of the arrested culprits.

Perhaps this is what has given those still engaged in illegal mining the boldness to perpetuate it, even after all the sacrifices made by the media, the state and
However, the Daily Graphic calls on all stakeholders, as well as the Ghanaian public, not to throw in the towel in the fight for our sustainability and survival as a nation.

We have come too far in the fight to stop here for a few greedy miscreants to hold the entire nation to ransom. Our very lives depend on the complete success of the campaign against galamsey.

The Daily Graphic is of the view that if we look on for the small gains made against the fight to be eroded, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Some reports suggest that there are some officials in government behind the brazen and wanton illegal mining currently going on across the country.

We urge full-scale investigations into such allegations, no matter how spurious they may seem. We cannot gloss over these if we must nip galamsey in the bud.

We are aware that a top official of the ruling party and some others have been arrested in connection with missing excavators from MMDAs, which means that the government is not shielding its own.

We trust that thorough investigations will be conducted so that the money spent by the state to completely eradicate galamsey will not be in vain.

The media will continue to do their part by speaking against galamsey and we hope that the citizenry will also do their part by reporting people engaged in the nefarious activity while the government will ensure they are properly prosecuted.