Fighting galamsey: Marshal security to eliminate menace - GPCC urges govt

The Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) has urged the government to deploy the entire security network to clamp down on illegal mining (galamsey) across the country once and for all. 

The security operation, the ecumenical body said, should be well coordinated but should be preceded by a massive educational campaign that could rope in all stakeholders in the catchment areas of illegal mining activities in the country.  

The security intervention forms part of seven measures the GPCC has proposed to deal with the galamsey menace which continues to destroy water bodies and devastated the environment, with attendant health implications to the citizenry.

The GPCC resolution, signed by its Chairman, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, and made available to the Daily Graphic, also called on Parliament to undertake a comprehensive review of the country's legal regime on mining.  

Repeal laws

“This would involve the repeal of all ambiguous and nebulous laws that persist in our statute books and the introduction of forward-looking provisions and stringent ones to address the mischief of the current legal architecture in the mining sector.  

“For example, the provisions on the purchase of mercury under Section 96 of Act 703 is so porous that it yields to abuse and channelling of that environmentally unfriendly substance (mercury) into the hands of illegal miners,” it said.  

Again, it said with the freeze on all manner of small-scale mining, all river bodies destroyed by galamsey, as well as the degraded environment, should be declared as security zones and be restored under a comprehensive and holistic reclamation programme.  

It called for a halt to the politicisation of the galamsey menace since the dangers that accompanied illegal mining did not take note of political colours.  

The GPCC said the various sectoral agencies tasked with overseeing the regulatory regime of mining should be revamped to make them effective and efficient. 

“It is quite unfortunate that amidst the plethora of laws that undergird the small scale and other mining activities in the country, the regulatory and implementing bodies appear to have gone to sleep, enabling illegality to have a field day,” it said.  

Moreover, it tasked the government to provide alternative livelihood opportunities for the youth and others caught within the crossfire of galamsey due to poverty and other forms of deprivation. 

Commendation

The council commended the various traditional rulers and opinion leaders who had stood against illegal mining in their enclaves, and taken bold steps to curb its growth and ascendancy beyond acceptable limits.

“The GPCC member churches will continue to educate their respective congregations about the perils of galamsey and their hazardous effects on livelihoods, health and the human ecosystem. It is the expectation of the GPCC that the government would not allow unbridled greed and the selfishness of a few people to mortgage the country's future on the altar of greed and materialism.

“The Council is expecting the government to take the bull by the horns and act with alacrity and expedition to arrest the worrying trends, which appear to be a time bomb that threatens every facet of our very existence,” it said.  

The GPCC joined other civil society and faith-based organisations and labour unions to condemn the current poor management of the country’s biodiversity in its mineral rich regions and the poor enforcement of laws that could have protected the public from such illegal, unethical and irresponsible mining activities.  

Health

The GPCC said the health effect that the wanton illegal mining practice was having on populations in galamsey communities, as well as the downstream communities that depended on very highly polluted water from those river bodies left much to be desired.  

Already, it said there were increasing reports of typhoid, renal diseases, cancers, babies born with deformities, among other things, in communities where galamsey had become endemic.

“Virtually, all health-sector labour groups have made a very urgent call on government to immediately ban small-scale and galamsey mining activities. Indeed, the biodiversity on which our very lives depend is being destroyed very fast, and this has serious implications for the present and future generations of our country,” it said.