Let the music begin and let’s dance to it says Deputy Chief of Staff
The scientific community, specifically the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research ( CSIR), has decided that enough is enough. For years, its research findings on the looming water crisis caused by desertification, siltation and pollution, especially galamsey, have not produced the needed level of fear and trembling in government to the point of compelling action from the Castle and recently the Flagstaff House.
So last Tuesday, the scientists called a meeting of all stakeholders, including the security agencies. The meeting was not the first of its kind. What was different this time was that they invited the Flagstaff House.
Flagstaff House honoured the invitation and sent to the meeting the Deputy Chief of Staff. In the hope that he would not turn out to be a mere sounding board, the CSIR spoke, and spoke with passion.
The Deputy Chief of Staff heard how, at Tarkwa in the Western Region, the hand of a researcher suddenly developed rashes when he dipped it in water fetched from a community standpipe - the result of too much arsenic deposits in water. “What then happens on the inside of the people who drink daily from the so-called “pipe-borne” water. At the hospitals, urine samples of the citizens are found to contain mercury.
The meeting also heard that at Bogoso, another mining town in the Western Region, scientists from the Soil Research Institute tested bread samples in the area and discovered the presence of mercury.
In areas where vegetables are cultivated, very high levels of cadmium, lead and copper have been found in the soil. It is known that as a result of galamsey, the Ghana Water Company is compelled to spend a lot more millions in foreign exchange to import a lot more alum to purify the water. For the first time I heard that “too much alum is harmful to human health.”
Meanwhile, as was pointed out at the meeting, “Galamsey does not benefit the community. It is for the personal and private profit of those who engage in it.”
Then it was the turn of the Chief of Staff’s deputy. It turned out that the scientists had been preaching to the converted. This man, apparently with a background in science, spoke the language of the scientists. He knew everything; he understood the Ghanaian situation.
“We are beyond a crisis situation in this country,” he intoned. “Ghana can’t continue to go on like this. We have to do something.”
The problem with the Ghanaian society, he said, was the impunity. “People in Tema are building factories in places marked for residential accommodation. Why has Ghana had to resort to building desalination plants to treat sea water for drinking? It is because we are polluting the water and endangering the lifespan of water bodies. It’s everywhere. We have to do something about this. Let the music begin and let us dance to it.”
So what should be done? You would have fallen in love with the Deputy Chief of Staff. He even cited Chairman Mao of China. “If, in the 60s, Mao had not enforced the one-child policy, we can all imagine the population of China today, Yet at the time he took that decision, he was branded a dictator,” he said.
After he had said this, I was expecting to hear a bombshell-action by government against galamsey.
But hear the Chief of Staff’s deputy: “We have to appeal to the conscience of those people. We have to spread the message to the rest of the population for the people of Ghana to realise the harm galamsey is causing us”.
Somebody in the crowd drew attention to the fact that a similar problem once confronted Singapore. The government succeeded in eradicating the illegality with force, but the country did not burn. The alternative is what the UK did. Faced with the challenge of water pollution, the government pumped more money into the system and got the expected result.
The Deputy Chief of Staff asked that copies of the presentations be sent to him at the Flagstaff House, assuring everybody
