Galamsey fight: Akufo-Addo’s approach wrong – Small-scale miners

The Chairman of the Ashanti Regional Small-scale miners, Kwadwo Peprah, has said the approach adopted by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo towards ending the illegal small scale mining (galamsey) activities in Ghana was bad.

He said the president lumped both the galamseyers and the licensed small-scale miners together and issued a command that all should be stopped as part of the fight against the illicit practice.

Mr Peprah said that approach was wrong because it gave the illegal miners the leeway to hide their identity.

“Putting all of us together in one bracket was very bad,” he told Kwabena Prah Jnr (The Don), host of the Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM on Tuesday, 11 February 2020.

The government in 2018 placed a ban on all small mining activities as a way of dealing with the illegal ones among them.

The move was part of the efforts to protect the environment and water bodies in the country that were being destroyed by activities of the galamsayers.

But Mr Peprah said banning all small-scale mining activities was not the best approach.

“Those who advised the President to do that did a bad work by giving him that advice,” he said.

He added: “It didn’t help matters because the illegal ones took advantage of that to hide and, so, they were the ones still engaging in the activities even when the ban had been placed.”