Galamsey menace: Can Mahama’s new order heal the wounds?

Ghana is at war with its own survival.

Rivers that once sustained villages now run thick with poison.

What nourished farms and households is today smothered by a film of mercury, stripping soil of fertility and robbing communities of clean water. 

This is the grim legacy of galamsey—illegal mining that has gouged forests, scarred farmlands, and institutionalised destruction on a national scale.

Beyond poisoned rivers and ruined ecosystems, the silent toll is borne by communities left with barren land, collapsing livelihoods, and shrinking futures. 

The human cost is equally harrowing. Children are born with deformities, families drink toxic water, and entire communities live under the shadow of contamination.

What began as a livelihood for a few has become a national curse, threatening food security, public health, and Ghana’s very survival. 

Yet galamsey persists—propped up by political protection, weak enforcement, and the lure of quick wealth.

The question is no longer whether Ghana is paying the price, but whether the nation’s wounds can ever truly heal.

For decades, Ghana has lacked the political will to confront galamsey. What began as scattered activity has hardened into an entrenched menace consuming rivers, forests, and farms while shaping the very character of politics.

An estimated four million people are directly or indirectly engaged in galamsey.

This vast constituency has become a political bargaining chip.

Politicians seeking votes dare not alienate it, while those in opposition weaponise the issue with promises they rarely deliver. 

Neither of the two major parties is innocent.

Both have played the galamsey chess game—condemning it in public while quietly indulging it for electoral gain.

The result is a cycle where short-term politics triumphs over long-term survival. 

Under Jerry Rawlings, artisanal mining spread with little regulation.

Kufuor expanded small-scale licenses, but enforcement faltered.

Mills and Mahama inherited a system already captured by power brokers, chiefs, and foreign financiers—especially Chinese syndicates—who exploited political ties to operate with impunity. 

Akufo-Addo raised hopes when he vowed to define his presidency by the fight against galamsey.

Operation Vanguard and the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining followed.

Yet both collapsed under partisan interference. 

What began as an environmental issue has since morphed into a political economy—rooted in patronage, weak institutions, and the appetite of politicians for votes and funding.

Every government of the 4th Republic has, in one way or another, traded Ghana’s environment for expediency. 

President Mahama now appears to be charting a different path—pragmatic rather than emotional, less about short-term appeasement and more about long-term recovery.

His approach blends two imperatives: addressing the destruction caused by galamsey and finding sustainable ways to reclaim lands and restore livelihoods. 

At the heart of this plan is sustainable funding. Mahama recognises that defeating galamsey cannot rely on rhetoric or brute force alone.

It demands resources—massive resources—to clean rivers, rehabilitate farms, and restructure the mining sector. 

His paradoxical strategy is to tap proceeds from the very galamsey economy that caused the damage, while working towards its regulation and formalisation.

From this paradox emerged the GoldBoard.