Open letter to Organized Labour regarding threat to shutdown the country over legal, illegal mining

Dear Leadership of Organized Labour,

I bring you warm greetings from the corridors of a concerned Ghanaian citizen who has chanced on your Press Statement of October 1, 2024, declaring a nationwide strike with effect from October 10, over what you claimed to be government’s failure to meet your demands on legal and illegal mining.

I read the said statement with shock and disbelief particularly in respect to what you are threatening to do and the reasons you gave for same, which I find quite problematic, unlawful and, indeed, a recipe for chaos.

Before I proceed to justify my position, let me first explain remind you of who you are, and your mandate as provided for by law. The law says you are a labour union and your mandate is to protect the interest of workers at work. Your authority or mandate is thus limited to championing the welfare of workers. You are not a political organization, nor a governance think tank, nor a CSO with an unregulated and unlimited powers to delve into every matter like an octopus. 

Even the various Arms of Government (Legislature, Executive, Judiciary), which constitute the pillars of our constitutional democracy, do not have unlimited or unrestrained powers. I also find most of the demands you are making quite problematic, unrealistic, absurd and unlawful. You are asking government to place a ban on illegal mining (galamsey). How can one ban what the law has already banned and made illegal?

You are also asking government to place a complete ban on legal mining. How can one ban what the law says is legal? And do you know the implications of that? You certainly need to take the advice of one of Ghana’s finest legal luminaries and Convenor of OccupyGhana, Lawyer Ace Ankomah, who vehemently opposed the demands for a complete ban on mining activities in the country, arguing that legitimate mining companies should not be grouped with illegal miners as that would be unjust and would have huge consequences on the nation.  

You may also recall the decision of the Supreme Court in Tuffour v Attorney General where it held that no person can make lawful what the law says is unlawful, and no person can make unlawful what the law says is lawful. Hope you do not want the nation and, indeed, the poor Ghanaian taxpayer, to be saddled with plethora of lawsuits and potential judgment debts.

If you think the declaration of a state of emergency by the President, which you are calling for, will absolve the State of any liability, then you are wrong. It is trite law that a contracting party cannot rely on a self-induced frustration to avoid his legal or contractual obligations.

The Supreme Court of Ghana has also recently ruled in Prof Kwadwo Appiagyei-Tua & 7 Others v AG, that, the declaration of a state of emergency pursuant to Article 31 of the Constitution is not a license for the State to engage in unlawful deprivation of the rights of citizens. 

The apex court, in effect, emphasized the need for the executive and the judiciary to safeguard the constitutional rights of citizens even in times of national emergency, thus, ensuring that any restrictions on these rights are hundred percent justified, necessary and proportionate.

Again, it is estimated that over four(4) million Ghanaians are engaged in mining either directly or indirectly. So, if the nation is minded to implement your demands, i.e. ban all forms of mining activities in the country, then every Ghanaian soldier including those on peacekeeping duties in Ghana and abroad, have to be recalled and deployed to mining sites 24 hours a day to enforce the ban.

We even have to import thousands of soldiers from other countries to augment our military strength for purposes of this operation. Maybe, you have forgotten of the threats of violent extremism and terrorism that Ghana is currently facing and how that is occupying the attention of our men and women in uniform. There’s also the rising tension in the country ahead of the general elections.

Are you really saying that because some people engage in irresponsible mining, there should be a complete ban on every mining activity including responsible and legal mining? Is this not akin to saying that because some media personnel or houses have been reckless and unprofessional, the nation should declare war on media freedom and collapse all media houses in Ghana including those engaged in lawful and responsible media practice?

It appears you are on a mission to set a very bad precedent, where tomorrow, you can use this same industrial tool to make ANY DEMAND and expect same to be met. You may even demand the removal of the Chief Justice, IGP, Speaker of Parliament, Electoral Commission boss, NCCE boss, or even the President of the Republic, else, you will threaten to shutdown the economy by calling on all workers to strike. Can you imagine how ungovernable the nation will be? Aren’t you taking the nation to ransom?

I thought as a people and country, we chose the path of constitutional order and rule of LAW rather than rule of MEN in order to avert such chaotic situations. Hasn’t the law provided elaborate mechanisms and procedures for aggrieved citizens to vindicate all their concerns and seek appropriate remedy? Is organized labor not subject to the law? Are you above the law?

People have also legitimately questioned the timing of this industrial action by organized labour which is coming less than two months to the 2024 general elections. The devastation caused by mining certainly did not start today.

It was so bad under the NDC/Mahama government and the government’s response was equally so unsuccessful and frustrating that a Minister of State at the time, Hon. Mahama Ayariga, advised the government to consider regularizing illegal mining, because, to him, there was no way the government could win the fight. We didn’t hear from organized labour. 

Of course, the devastation has continued under the NPP government despite government’s efforts to arrest it. We didn’t hear from organized labour throughout the tenure of the government (for almost 8 years). The government is left with only 2 months to the end of its tenure, and this is the time organized labour has suddenly felt the need to call for such drastic measures to be done IMMEDIATELY?

It is no rocket science that if the NPP government was forced to meet all the far-reaching demands being made by organized labour, then we probably shouldn’t conduct the December elections, because the NPP would definitely lose the elections considering the millions of people that would be affected including legitimate small scale miners and their dependents.

In effect, organized labour is essentially asking President Akufo Addo to handover to former President John Mahama. They are thus, indirectly staging a coup, which cannot be allowed. The Ghanaian people must be given the free will to decide their next political leaders at the polls in line with our democratic and constitutional dictates.

Labour must realize that galamsey is an endemic social canker that has permeated every facet of our society, which therefore, cannot be defeated with executive power per se through the use of brute force. If that were the case, Operation Vanguard, Operation Halt and Operation Galamstop would have ended. It rather requires social reorientation and reconstruction to get the people in mining communities themselves to join the fight in order to be successful.  

However, the NDC think they must seize the opportunity to make political capital at the expense of the governing party. And so, when their leaders are in Accra, they call on government to place a complete ban on mining and to use brute to enforce the ban. Yet, when they go to the miners to campaign, they tell them that the NPP government is tormenting miners and that they should vote for the NDC, because, they [NDC] will allow them to engage in galamsey if they win.

To deal with this sheer political opportunism, which is derailing the galamsey fight, I expected organize labour to have joined the media coalition against galamsey in their quest to get all the Presidential Candidates to openly commit to the fight by signing a binding national anti-galamsey pact, developed by CSOs, detailing the wayward to tackling galamsey in the best national interest, as was recently suggested by Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh. When this happens, no political party can claim undue electoral advantage.

These are the things that should concern you as leaders of organized labour. You should not, hurriedly, and on the basis of false and unjustifiable grounds, be calling on all workers in Ghana (those in the formal and informal sectors, public and private sectors) to stay at home indefinitely. You want health workers to lay down their tools so that citizens that need critical healthcare will die? Or the lives of the sick don’t matter?

You want the court and the entire judicial system to close down so that citizens who are seeking justice including those on remand will have none. You want all government ministries, departments and agencies to close down so that people will have no access to public services. You want the banks to close down so that people can’t have access to their money.

You are asking all the workers at our airports, harbours and lorry stations to stay at home so that nobody can travel. You want traders to close their shops and not engage in any economic activity. How do you expect all these people to survive? How do you also expect workers (public and private) to be paid their monthly salaries?

Which money will be used to pay them, and who will process the payment when that person is also supposed to be on strike? You see how unrealistic and problematic your demands are? I’m sure you haven’t thought of the far-reaching implications of the nationwide strike you are calling for. You are virtually asking the entire country to shutdown completely. Even during coups, we don’t shut down a country.

We are right-thinking people in a right-thinking society. Our gods are not that crazy!

Assalamu alaik

muhayudeen2007@yahoo.com

#ForGodAndCountry