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“When you can’t change your situation, you can make changes to your attitude” as the saying goes.
What advantages might the Regions, Municipal, and Districts gain from “Galamsey" prone areas? What are the long-term benefits?
A view through development economic lenses questions why there should be a memorandum of understanding with communities engaged in illicit mining. Illegal mining has taken a much stronger hold, leading to the devastation of several hectares of land without extensive consultation.
According to such memoranda of understanding, the Assemblies will be in charge of reclaiming all the land that has been devastated and *Tick or Milliner* trees will have to be planted.
The understanding is that landowners and the Assemblies shall each get a proportionate share of the revenues generated by this policy.
I believe it is time we included apolitical thinkers in our local government framework to help with suggestions on long-term strategies to enhance revenue generation, and reduce pressure on the Central Government to release cash for the growth of local government administration.
Children still attend school in dilapidated buildings in the twenty-first century, and under trees, encased in decaying structures built of mud and thatch, where the thatch acts as a habitat for poisonous reptiles but could put the lives of students in danger.
The only convincing response one will hear from District Chief Executives when asked by newsmen about the conditions school children are exposed to, is a lack of funding for modern classrooms. Really?
While this is happening, money could be made if individuals in positions of power and the powers that be agree to think outside the box.
It is time we allowed the Regions and the various Municipal and District Assemblies where “Galamsey" is predominantly visible to engage in land reclamation and work with the Ghana Forest Commission to plant ticks or milliners. After seven years, these Assemblies might even be able to provide loans to the national government to support the economy.
As it is now, there’s wastage and destruction going on with no end in sight, and it will take a lot of thinking and collaboration to reverse this menace affecting our agriculture production and loss of lives.
We need to be serious for once, something is not right in our once vibrant communities as some leaders stay unconcerned.
A reversal of this canker is long overdue. I believe so.