Convener of the Media Coalition Against Galamsey Ken Ashigbey has insisted that a state of emergency should be declared in the areas affected by illegal small-scale mining (Galamsey) as part of the fight.
He believes that the state of emergency will provide more impetus to stakeholders charged with the responsibility to nip the practice in the bud.
“We still demand the imposition of a state of emergency in the illegal mining fight. We also need to put in place a system where we can track all active excavators in Ghana,” he said on the KeyPoints on TV3 Saturday, March 22.
Ken Ashigbey further said that efforts should be made to unearth the real owners of the excavators brought into the country for illegal mining.
He suggested that the chassis numbers of the excavators can be used to track the real owners.
“If you take the chassis number you will be able to trace it to who owns it,” he said.
He added, “we should look for the sources of the funding for the excavators, they should trace the money…we are waiting for the Minister to publish the list of those who imported into the country then we know who are bringing it.”
The Executive Director of A Rocha, Daryl Bossu also said that a lot of the country’s forest reserves are currently under siege by illegal small-scale miners.
He says the number of forests captured by the illegal miners is more than the 44 put out by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources.
“A lot of the forests are experiencing illegal mining, eating away the forests. We have more than 44 forest reserves affected by illegal mining,” he said on the KeyPoints on TV3 Saturday, March 22.
He further noted that the present government inherited the situation. “And I sympathise with them because it gives them a lot of work to do,” he said.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah earlier revealed that 44 of Ghana’s forest reserves are under serious attack by heavily armed illegal small-scale miners (Galamseyers).
He says that the forest guards and rapid response team from the Forestry Commission are unable to tackle these illegal miners because they do not have the sophisticated weapons that the galamseyers possess.
Briefing Parliament on the state of Ghana’s forests on Thursday, February 20, the Minister said “Ghana’s forests continue to be under serious threats of deforestation and forest degradation due to factors known to all of us. Ghana is currently faced with an unprecedented threat to our forest resources and water bodies due largely to illegal small-scale mining activities.
“This situation has assumed crisis proportion of dire national security and public health consequences that require immediate attention.”
He added “Mr Speaker, it will interest you to know that out of the 288 forest reserves, a whopping 44 of these forest reserves are under serious attack by illegal miners, they are heavily armed with sophisticated weapons and very violent with a large number of excavators making it extremely difficult for a forest guard and rapid response to control them since they have no such sophisticated weapons to control them. Over 9 out of the 44 forest reserves have been completely taken over by these illegal mining thugs with impunity. The Forestry Commission no longer has access to these forest reserves.”
Prior to his submission, the Minister for Environment, Science, and Technology, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, had expressed the government’s commitment to win the fight against illegal small-scale mining.
Murtala assured that measures had been put in place to stop galamsey.
“There’s no denying the fact that politicians are engaged in galamsey… It’s shocking to note that as of 2022, the state had taken a decision to withdraw security forces who were preventing people from engaging in galamsey in all galamsey areas.
“No [rethoric], we want to do less talking and much work. I can tell you what we’re doing is profound. Some of the things I can’t put out there. I had some engagement today, [Wednesday, February 19] with some organisations and institutions to see how we can stop galamsey and at the same time restore the water bodies,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.
He assured that Ghanaians will see changes in the galamsey fight in a few months.
“By the will of God, within some few months, the people of Ghana will see some drastic changes as far as our water bodies and galmsey are concerned.”
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