Ghana Loses Galamsey Fight at Own Risk
The Anchor dreads a day very sooner than later, when Ghanaian would be told in a modern Ghana tell-tales that people of Ga-Mashie wake up to the mischief of meeting heaps of judiciously-guarded dug-sand right at the MantseAgbonaa, being sieves with gusto, and brazen bizarre of doing galamsey right in the heart of the national capital, Accra; and at safe Kalashnikov-armed-to-teeth personnel encircled-cordon.
We note that the fight against the illegal mining activities in Ghana notoriously christened “Galamsey” is becoming a very protracted one, in fact, worse than the now-famous Russia-Ukraine war that continues to tighten our waist-line belt too hard beyond measure, and getting Ghanaians choke to hunger’s death.
When governments in the past did their widow’s mite quota in this fight, the past efforts just couldn’t achieve the necessary goal of stopping the menace. The paper could sense that the more efforts put into the fight by the system, the more the illegal mining flourishes and escalates, and, we can say without hesitation that the vexed issue is almost at its crescendo; and getting the entire nation confused and unwillingly relinquished.
It is true that a hyped fight that outlasts its expected period often become boorish and disinterests its spectators. However, the fight against illegal mining in Ghana should still be the one we call boorish, but disinterest; we lose our guard and the enemy cashes in; and their ‘victory’ put the entire nation at risk of – losing not only our pride and sovereignty as leaders, but also be taken hostage and indeed, becoming POW of the resultant negative effects of land degradation, pollution of our water bodies and in fact, all form and matter of general negative environmental footprints, detrimental to our wellbeing.
The Anchor regrets the above-mentioned self-inflicted anticipated nature’s calamities, could also affect food and general agricultural productivity as it will, the nation’s potable water sources. We find it humiliating to recall the milky-creamy nature view of polluted rivers, Pra, Offin, Densu, Ankobra and others, though these serve as drinkable water sources to large number of Ghanaians. It is interesting also to note that Ghana’s dams that commonly supply water to most part of urban areas are also suffering the fate of pollution today, due to human activities and leadership inactivity.
Naturally, the paper believes, all efforts to purify the over-contaminated rivers, dams and creeks for human use, even if possible, shall come with additional cost which, maybe, national budget could struggle to meet immediately, hence attempt to toll it on Ghanaians.
Whenthe Anchor pays cognizance to the onerous efforts by the deputy minister for lands and natural resources in-charge of mining, Hon George MirekuDuker, for his relentless militancy stance against the illegal mining nuisance, we urge that MinisterDuker’s efforts be resolutely supported patriotically, by further pushby operational mechanisms put in place vis-à-visOperation Halt.
It is our clarion call, however, on all, to view the galamsey fight as a national concern, because the menace has already destroyed large chunk of lands including cocoa and food crop farmland as it did and still doing to human habitation.
The paper also noted that today, Ghana Water Company (GWC) Limited’s struggles to purify the nation’s needed drinking water, let alone coming with attendant huge cost to the end-user in bills, would not be found too farther from the above argument.
The Anchor’s fear, however, is, God forbid, we lose the illegal mining fight, because, we do so at our own nearest future risk.
Source: Anchorghana
