The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resource, Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has urged chiefs, MMDCES, Small Scale Miners and other stakeholders to as a matter of urgency make it a serious responsibility and join forces in the fight against illegal mining.
Expressing worry over the alarming rate of water destruction, the sector minister warned perpetrators and other evil planners to immediately put a stop to their acts since it is causing the country a lot.
The Minister who was addressing a gathering of chiefs, assembly members and residents of Bedabo in the Atwima Mponua district of the Ashanti region, said, illegal miners who operate on water bodies or use other means to destroy water bodies are more than murderers whose activities cause a lot of damage to lives.
Mentioning the use of mercury on water bodies as one of the poisonous ways of killing people by these illegal miners, the worried minister called on everyone to get themselves involved in the fight.
The minister who visited the area with members of the Ghana Water Company, the Atwima Mponua DCE, small scale mining task force and a team of pressmen to inspect the current state of the Ofin River at Beposo, Asuogya Abompe, Kyenkyemso and Bedabo, expressed much worry over how the river had lost its glory to "galamsey" activities.
Commenting on the once clean Ofin River which has sadly turned deep brown, the minister mentioned the need for us to clamp down on these evils who only seek to destroy out of greedy and selfishness.
According to her, it was very worrying the amount of money government has to spend before producing normal water for drinking and other uses keep rising.
"We've realized that of late, the cost of producing is going higher, higher and higher and it's like there's no end. That's why we're joining forces as a matter of duty with stakeholders like chiefs, the youth, legal small scale miners to make sure we're all on one page as well as religious leaders to make sure we preserve our heritage.
"We came to meet the chiefs and they have cordially welcomed us and given us food for thought that if possible we should have task forces in all districts and I took their advice and I want to also propose to my colleagues' other sector ministers who are jointly responsible to chase out this menace of galamsey to look at it that every town, village should have its own task force". She urged.
Meanwhile, research has revealed that the normal turbidity of water which should be measured below 1 NTU for safe drinking and other uses, rather keep shooting above 50 NTU in Ghana.
The Minister reiterated that in as much as the president puts his presidency on the line in the fight against illegal mining, it behooves on all other stakeholders including her ministry to do their best to support the president's dream.
She re-echoed the president's statement that galamsey is evil and we must fight it at all cost. She urged that everyone must be on page with the president without relenting.
She said her sector together with the other stakeholders can't afford to be part of a failing team that would make the president lose the game.
She further revealed that it was her duty as a sector minister to go round and check water bodies that have been destroyed by galamsey activities and make sure such evil is put to stop.
Ing. Dr. Clifford Braimah, Managing director of the Ghana Water Company Limited speaking to the media also lamented over how huge sums of money has to be spent on chemicals to ensure water before they can be pumped into the system for use.
Expressing worry over high turbidity of water in recent times, the managing director urged Ghanaians to get themselves involved in the fight against illegalities that cause destruction of water bodies.
He also revealed that the volume of water that is supposed to be produced into the system keeps reducing drastically due to the fact that the high level of turbidity compels them to throw away up to 50 percent of water.
"For example, if you take a hundred litres of water, under normal circumstances if you treat it you need to throw away five percent but because of the high level of turbidity, in some of the cases we throw up to fifty percent".
He also disclosed that their machines would have to be stopped and maintained more regularly than before. He said this caused a lot of frequent shutdowns which in turn failed people to get water.
"Anytime you shut down your plant, people are not getting water, that is what it means. Also we cannot continue to treat this galamsey as a joke, else we'll all have a challenge in this country," he said.
He sadly mentioned that the only place we still have very clean water is Kpone because the Volta has still not been disturbed that much.
Finally, the DCE for the Atwima Mponua district Hon lsaac Kofi Marfo also told the media how best he had been fighting the illegal mining within his area, indicating that his office in collaboration with the task force have been able to arrest illegal miners and destroyed many chamffan machines on water bodies.
Assuring his commitment, the DCE pledged that he was going to make sure there was sanity within the district.
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Minister of Sanitation and Water Resource, Madam Cecilia Abena Dapaah