Akufo-Addo’s half-hearted and fire-fighting approach to the galamsey menace is bound to fail

The feet-dragging of President Akufo-Addo alone to even meet some demands of Organized Labour to place a temporary ban on galamsey, repeal the obnoxious LI 2462, establish galamsey courts and declare a state of emergency tells it all.

The only hope that Ghanaians had was the Organized Labour but the suspension of the planned nationwide strike on 10th October 2024 has broken many hearts in Ghana.

This suspension decision may be attributable to undue pressure from and complicity of this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime in addressing the galamsey fight. Is the current Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime not fully aware of the gravity of ecological and health implications of this unchecked high-tech galamsey (HTG)? I seriously doubt that!

While Ghanaians are highly concerned about the existential threat posed by the ongoing HTG activities, this current government appears not to be bordered much about it.

The 4 main demands of Organized Labour’s to place a temporary ban on small-scale mining including galamsey activities, repeal the LI 2462, establish galamsey courts and declare a state of emergency are not too much to ask President Akufo-Addo to do since he has enormous executive powers to make that happen swiftly.

Rather, we are witnessing feet-dragging, half-hearted and fire-fighting decisions taking place.

This Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime appears to be thinking more about votes for the NPP instead of comprehensively dealing with this dangerous and scary socio-environment problem, which is worsened by actions and inactions of this very government.

The deployment of some few Military personnel now for 2 weeks to chase out Galamseyers on major water bodies to assuage the anger of Organized Labour and Ghanaians is a knee-jerk reaction.

These half-hearted, renewed galamsey fight efforts by Akufo-Addo are bound to fail like the previous Militarized efforts under the era of Prof. Frimpong-Boateng at the Ministry of Environment, Science and technology a few years ago.

For instance, seizing a few Changfans and pumping machines on major rivers as well as burning a few excavators onsite to create a public spectacle and pretending to fight HTG activities is dilutional and ineffective. This approach indeed failed in the past.

The right or sustainable approach to deal with this environmental menace is to 1) place temporary ban on small-scale mining including galamsey operations and

2) declaration of state of emergency now, while 3) taking committed steps to repeal LI 2462, 4) establish ‘galamsey courts’ and arrest/prosecute Galamseyers as well as 5) making adequate financial and human resources available for the galamsey fight.

As a lame duck President, Nana Akufo-Addo is unwilling to tackle the root causes of the HTG ‘disease’ under his watch by dealing with those his Party members doing galamsey in forest reserves and on water bodies, repealing LI 2462, declaring state of emergency and drawing together enough resources and support from critical stakeholders and security forces to solve the galamsey menace once and for all.

President Akufo-Addo and Vice President, Dr. Bawumia are simply waiting to transfer the worsened galamsey menace to the next government after December 7, 2024. This is highly unfortunate.

Ghanaians have now seen the insincerity and obvious lack of political will to fight this scary HTG phenomenon although President Akufo-Addo put his Presidency on the line in this matter.

Ghanaians should punish the NPP Parliamentary candidates as well as NPP’s Flagbearer who are only focusing on winning or retaining their seats to go to the next Parliament in 2025.