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The Media Coalition Against Galamsey has announced plans to petition the two leading presidential candidates, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), urging them to publicly denounce illegal mining activities, commonly known as galamsey.
Speaking in an interview with Selorm Adonoo on The Big Issue, which airs on Channel One TV and Citi FM, the coalition’s convener, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey, highlighted the damaging effects of illegal mining. He emphasized, “The illegality of mining has nothing to do with the scale, and again, when you played the labour statement, they called for a ban on all forms of mining around water bodies. They did not say ban small-scale mining.”
Ashigbey clarified that the coalition is not demanding an outright ban on all mining activities but rather advocating for the government to declare a state of emergency. He called for stricter enforcement of Ghana’s mining laws to combat the environmental destruction caused by illegal operations near water bodies.
Outlining the coalition’s next steps, Ashigbey stated they would seek to have both NDC and NPP candidates clearly express their stance against galamsey. He noted, “The Media Coalition Against Galamsey is not calling for a ban. We are calling for a declaration of a state of emergency and enforcing the laws that we have. The NDC and the NPP sat in Parliament and passed LI 2462, and if you see the people who have been given these permits to go into the forest reserves, we are saying this LI should be revoked. It is the president who can revoke the LI by replacing it with a new one, and if you don’t do that, you will not be able to resolve the problem.”
He further added, “To deal with the issue of politicisation, we are going to be calling on the current Vice President and the former president, who is the presidential candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to also openly declare their revulsion for what is happening and their support for the crisis efforts.”
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