Govt, chiefs must collaborate to win galamsey fight — CPP Presidential Candidate

The Convention People’s Party (CPP) has called for collaboration between the government and traditional authorities to address the canker of illegal mining in the country.

The presidential candidate of the CPP, Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong-Kumankumah, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that with the intervention of chiefs and elders, everything within the local environment would be better managed and controlled.

She said every action of illegal miners affected the entire Ghanaian society, and not only those in the mining areas.

“So, a particular water that has been affected with mercury and lead does not impact just that village; it goes everywhere. So, if you sit in Accra, and you think it doesn't affect you, that is a big joke. The water you are drinking today could be full of lead, as the dam is full with lead,” she stated.

Discussing a wide range of issues, including the CPP’s plans for the country in the event of being elected into office in 2025, Nana Sarpong-Kumankumah said the country needed to change its economic structure by developing the informal sector as part of wide-ranging reforms to reshape the economy.

“(This is important) because it is within that sector that you would be able to know how your citizens are really doing,” she stated.

 “Who is in need? What system or social intervention programmes must the government bring on board? What economic package should government bring?“, she asked.

Indicators

Nana Sarpong-Kumankumah said if there was enough food on the market, one needed to ask if the farmers that brought the food got 50 per cent of the food they harvested. 

She said the CPP would address issues that affected the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian.

She stressed the need to revisit the Young Farmers League and the Ghana Reconstruction League to commercialise and industrialise farming so that the country could be food-sufficient.

“So what we intend to do is a hybrid between state-led projects and the current private sector, which is the everyday person, the everyday farmer. How do we bridge that so that the farmer's life is not as impoverished as it is today?

“Our revolutionary approach is not a political statement. This is a statement and commitment that will be done on the day that we take power,” she stated.

Sales

Nana Sarpong-Kumankumah stated that farmers would not have to worry about how they sold their produce again, and that it would become “just as it is done in the cocoa sector. 

“Yet, there's no commercialised cocoa farm run by government. What we intend to do is revolutionise the agricultural industry by making sure that every crop that you plant, be it okra, cassava, plantain, corn, wheat, cashew nuts, anything that you plant in Ghana, or even your shea nut butter, will be bought by government. The moment you plant, that produce is paid for by government,” she stated.

“You don't have to worry about how you market or sell unless you have your own avenue to sell, or maybe you have your factory or you have a whole market somewhere,” she added.

Under the CPP, the flag bearer said, post-harvest losses would be in the hands of the government since the government would be buying every farm produce.

Doorstep governance

Nana Sarpong-Kumankumah said people in positions of trust needed to be accountable.

“That is why we will bring governance to the doorstep of the electorate,” she stated.

“You have no idea. How is the farmer supposed to know that the next-door villager, the next-door farmer, is also farming the same tomatoes and okra during that season, and has farmed even more pepper and more okra and more tomatoes than himself or herself?

“How is she supposed to know? Technology would do that, and that is why it is government's responsibility to ensure that technology is put in place to ensure that if the farmer plants tomatoes, you buy from her, and you make sure that her produce don’t go waste,” she said.

Nana Sarpong-Kumankumah said through the implementation of the CPP’s Agro-sure programme, every farm produce would be bought by the government.