Galamsey under siege: Govt unleashes decisive action National Security meeting sets stage for crackdown

The government will take a decisive action in the national interest against the scourge of illegal mining, taking into consideration the heightened national discourse, including the demand for an immediate ban on all forms of small-scale mining, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel A. Jinapor, has stated.

He said a crunch national security meeting would be held with all the 16 regional ministers on Wednesday, at which briefing would be given on the illegal mining situation in the country for the best decision to be taken.

"As a government, we have taken note of the divergent views that have been shared on this galamsey matter. We have banned small-scale mining in this country for almost two years before, so this call is not a strange one,” Mr Jinapor, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Damongo, said.

In an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday, the Lands and Natural Resources Minister said: “We will have a review of the process of the two-year ban, looking at the pros and cons, then a decision that will be in the supreme interest of the country will be taken.”

“It is important for all forms of partisanship to be shelved in the search for the best way out of the woods in the fight against galamsey,” Mr Jinapor added.

The Lands and Natural Resources Minister said if the situation where leading members of the ruling party were exhibiting a cold attitude towards the fight against galamsey in an election year, and the opposition political party was promising to grant amnesty to persons imprisoned for their involvement in galamsey persisted, there would be no headway in the fight against the menace. 

Growing concerns

Concerns about the upsurge in galamsey continues to swell as eminent Ghanaians and groups are mounting pressure on the President to take immediate action to halt the menace.

Ban

The latest to make a public declaration on the galamsey scourge are nine health sector unions which have called on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to ban all forms of small-scale mining in the country.

In a statement jointly issued last Friday, the health sector unions stressed that the scale of the galamsey scourge had reached an alarming level, and the only way out was for the President to exert his power by pulling the brakes on small-scale mining to help sanitise the sector and restore the country's degraded lands, forests and water resources.

The unions, including the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association, the Health Services Workers Union and the Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association, emphasised that it was important for the government to strengthen regulatory and enforcement agencies to effectively deal with the galamsey menace.

The other public sector health associations and unions that jointly made the demand are the Medical Laboratory Professional Workers Union, the Mortuary Workers Association of Ghana, the Ghana Association of Certified Anesthetists, the Health Accounting Staff Association and the Ghana Physician Assistants Association.

They stressed that their public outcry on the galamsey menace was against the backdrop of the devastation galamsey was having on water bodies and human lives.
Some prominent Ghanaians and state agencies providing essential services have decried the debilitating impact of galamsey on the environment, and called for prompt action to stem the tide.

A former Director-General of the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), Professor Stephen Adei, last week called on President Akufo-Addo to declare a national emergency on galamsey to help him draw more powers to tackle the menace head-on.

The management of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) also made a distress call for the halting of galamsey activities because it had heavily polluted the Pra River and other water bodies that served as sources of raw water to its treatment plants.

The GWCL indicated that the worsening turbidity of the Pra due to illegal mining activities had caused a reduction in water production by over 60 per cent in the Western Region, 30 per cent in the Central Region, with a total loss of 50 per cent of treated water.

A couple of weeks ago, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, destooled three chiefs in the Ashanti Region for their involvement in galamsey.

Collective action

When the Daily Graphic asked the minister what he made of those calls, Mr Jinapor stressed that since the impact of illegal mining spared no one, it was important for all stakeholders, especially chiefs, security agencies, civil society organisations (CSOs), local communities and all citizens to demonstrate their patriotism to the country by standing up to the galamsey fight.

"As I have said many times, we can only defeat this canker that is destroying us through national, collective and concerted efforts; the government cannot do it alone and the fight requires everyone to be onboard," he said.

Mr Jinapor said it was quite obvious that when all stakeholders came together to fight the menace, the results were impressive "because we made a lot of progress; but there is a resurgence in the menace as we can all see."

Commitment

The minister stressed that as daunting as the galamsey fight was, the government would not renege on its responsibility.

He said reforms that worked in the past would be reinforced while additional measures would be rolled out to tackle the menace.

"What I want to emphasise here is that citizens must help in the fight against this galamsey menace because it can only be effective with the support of citizens," Mr Jinapor stressed.