This constant resort to 'equalisation' won't do!

So, our Hon. The Attorney-General and his Deputy know how to speak?

It would have been nice of them to answer a few of the questions that the public has been asking about the campaign against galamsey, without waiting for the `NDC to make charges against the NPP government, before making public their effusions extolling what the Government is doing against galamsey.

Unfortunately, even their attempt to compare what their government has done with what the government of the NDC did NOT do, is largely of academic interest only.

The objective questions, which will be asked about the campaign against galamsey, irrespective of what Government is in power, remain Unanswered!

Because even if the AG and his Deputy have the answers, they may not wish to reveal them to the public. Self-preservation has been known to exist among holders of high office, irrespective of what political parties they belong to.

In any case, they would be loath to provide the NDC with any anti-NPP ammunition. Alas, it has come to that – although galamsey is steadily destroying the water drunk by both NPP and NDC supporters. Without discrimination!

What the public wants to know, Honourable Attorneys, is this: why is it that numerous people have been arrested on many occasions, for engaging in galamsey, and yet when they are taken to court, they are not accompanied by the criminals who finance their operations?

WHO provided the galamseyers who appear before the court(s) with the equipment for engaging in galamsey? Who SOLD to the financiers, the excavators, bulldozers and changfans utilised in galamsey?

Did the seller(s) attempt to establish whether the equipment would be utilised in galamsey operations? Wouldn’t that have been prudent, given the song-and-dance that has been made in this country about the destruction caused by galamsey?

Is there not a crime, going by the name, “accessories” before and after the fact, whose existence is precisely to warn law-abiders not to assist (whether willingly or unwittingly) in the commitment of crime?

Isn’t the AG’s office expected to educate the police, after reading the dockets produced against criminals, on omissions in the dockets, the further investigation of which might unearth more crimes? At the very least, shouldn’t the AG’s Department help the police to become more interested in the background to the commitment of certain offences?

Shouldn’t, in the interest of stamping out crime generally, the AG’s Department advise the Police CID to covertly observe the characters who, although not directly related to galamsey suspects, offer properties and cash to obtain bail to persons arrested whilst engaging in galamsey? Is It rocket science to suspect that a person who shows undue interest in the fate of a galamseyer, might be a hidden accomplice? Isn’t it possible that a prospective bailor might be the employer of the arrested individual?

Generally, shouldn’t the AG’s Department be interested in finding out why the Ghana police seem to be so uninterested in the issue of who provides bail to suspects? Is It because these bailors are usually people of influence?

Additionally, are our Honourable Attorneys telling us that they haven't noticed that irrespective of whichever Government is in power, excavators and bulldozers manage to get driven along our roads (many of which have police roadblocks) to riverbanks and other places whose locations mark them out to be potential galamsey sites? Do these excavators and bulldozers – and, especially changfangs – not silently advertise “galamsey!....galamsey!....galamsey!” with their mere presence?

Shouldn’t the police automatically detain them until they can prove to skilled investigators that they are being driven to places where they DO have legitimate business to do (other than galamsey)? What impression do the AG’s Department and the Police Service think is given by the widespread presence of such heavy equipment all over our countryside? As some Ghanaians ask sarcastically, “DO THE EXCAVATORS FLY THERE?”

The answer to that question, “DO THEY FLY THERE”? demonstrates what a laughable nation we have become. For in truth, if we found armoured cars or tanks that weigh as much as the excavators and bulldozers whose presence in our rural areas we tolerate, being transported by loose-loaders to our countryside, we would declare war on those transporting them and wipe them out!

Yet, whether we are killed by tanks and armoured cars, or by mercury poisoning of our drinking water, and ultimately, by thirst, we shall be just as dead as if we had been killed by lethal weapons unleashed on us by enemies from a foreign country.

Where, oh God, has Ghana’s “sense of proportion” vanished to?