Ghanaian broadcast, investigative and environmental journalist, Erastus Asare Donkor who is widely acclaimed for reporting on the impact of illegal mining popularly known as galamsay has expreesed disappointment about president John Dramani Mahama’s posture about the menace.
Mr Asare Donkor express his thoughts a day after president’s Mahama encounter with the media at the Jubilee House in Accra.
He writes:
The president did not inspire hope and urgency in the fight against Galamsey.
He watered down on a very precarious situation just as he has done always.
His posture reflected complicity on the infractions on the ground, whittling down a decapitation to a broken arm.
I totally disagree with him on the withdrawal of the IGP’s men and accusing them of not knowing the difference between legal small scale miners and illegal miners. That is a total fallacy.
It shows that it’s either the President was ill-briefed about the situation in the ground or he was totally clueless of what happens on the ground.
Or maybe he’s also joining the bandwagon of deliberate spinning of falsehoods in a bid to “give the dog a bad name to hang it.”
I challenge the President to name a single licensed small scale mining entity that is mining responsibly on the ground.
What is a small scale mining entity doing in a forest reserve when the law does not give permits to same to mine in a Forest reserve?
Who licensed small scale mining companies to be mining inches away from the Rivers Pra, Ankobra, Tano, Offin, Ayensu, Bia, Offin and the others where the taskforce arrested them?
In a normal civilized society, is it not the police that is clothed with law enforcement?
How different are nature crimes from the armed robberies that the police fight. When the President says “every policeman gets up and goes after illegal miners”, by implication is he saying that nature crimes are no longer crimes at the local level unless identified by NAIMOS?
Is the President respectfully asking local police to stay away from nature crimes and for that matter Galamsey just like it happened under the previous administration?
It’s equally disappointing to hear the President say; “we can’t be chasing after them when we have not provided them alternatives”!
Excuse me to say, it’s just like telling armed robbers, money doublers and scammers to continue with their criminal activities until government finds employment for them.
I’m sorry, this is not the President of a country that has more than 60 percent of its waterbodies polluted and laden with heavy metals!!
This is not the President of a country with 44 of its forest reserves attacked in a spate of eight years.
This is not the President of a country whose towns and villages and highways have been taken over by haphazard illegal mining.
This is not the President of a country whose muddy rivers are polluted the sea.
This is not the President of a country whose forest reserves are turning into miles of pits and gullies waiting for another generation to seek loans to reclaim them.
This is definitely not the President of a country whose newborn babies are registering childhood cancers, deformities and strange ailments from irresponsible mining.
This is not the President of a country that is worried about the grave environmental suicide crippling cocoa production and contaminating its cocoa exports.
The IGP’s men did a good job. They were fearless!! They have their flaws but they brought the “NONSENSE” under control.
Mr President, some of your party executives and appointees who were not happy with the way they were pouring sand in their gari, started a propagandist agenda to “give the dog a bad name just to hang it”!
Today as I write after the President’s submissions and “compromised” position on Galamsey, many illegal miners are meeting in Samereboi, and other areas.
They say they’ve been asked to go back. Go back and erode the gains we made. Let serve a warning: Mr President you are repeating the mistakes of the previous regime and you know the consequences.
I find a bit lame some of your answers to questions on Galamsey.
We all know that blue water guards is not the solution to mining on water bodies. The solution lies in a strong statement that certain areas are no-go areas for mining.
My worry is that we have a citizenry so divided by partisan politics that they reason like blind people to the truth about how their very existence, the future of generations is being decimated. Instead of looking at the bigger picture many Ghanaians are minding their own businesses. Those who speak are only seeking partisan leverages to please the political class.
Some of us will continue to push strongly the situation on the ground and do our bit as journalists. The media we have consistently is failing this country!! If only we would be serious about this, we could help push us all towards responsible mining.
