The government of Ghana has been on a drastic campaign to end the longstanding menace of illegal small-scale mining in the country, popularly referred to as "galamsey," but as several reports have indicated, the fight is nowhere close to being won.
From the several military-police-initiatives set up by the government to quell this canker, to the seizure of excavators, the arrest and prosecution of persons caught flouting the laws of the land, none of that has efficiently worked yet.
There have even been emphatic statements made by people in authority about the main financiers of these illegal activities, including the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.
According to him, while he was speaking at the first edition of the Regional Consultative Dialogue on Small Scale Mining on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, chiefs, including very high-ranking people in the country, are among the brains engaged in galamsey in the country.
He added that this was contributing to the government’s difficulty in bringing an end to the menace.
“Yesterday, regional minister and my son [Samuel] Jinapor came to me and said ‘Nana please say what is in the speech’ and I said alright I will. They felt I will say something else that is controversial.
“I told them that on this issue of galamsey when we divide the audience in this room into ten, 30 per cent of them will know those involved in galamsey…if you are not truthful, we will keep deceiving ourselves and be organizing conferences such as this,” he said.
And while all of these pertain, the country’s vegetative cover continues to be depleted through the continuous acts of galamsey.
GhanaWeb has chanced on a video produced by Edem Srem, a documentary producer, that shows aerial views of some locations in the country where the unbelievable, devastating effects of the illegal trade have destroyed many lands, forests and water bodies.
The shots were taken between August 1 and August 5, 2022, in the Western Region of Ghana.
See it below:
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