President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Alliance for Social Equity and Public Accountability (ASEPA) is demanding an unqualified apology from President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo – Addo after failing to fight illegal mining (galamsey).
“If he (President) is not shameful enough, he would have resigned from office by now. He would have resigned and said, fellow Ghanaians I promised to resign from office over his failure to stop galamsey, I have realized it didn’t work so at this instance, I am resigning from the Presidency because I have failed you”. “Executive Director of ASEPA Mr. Mensah Thompson said this in an interview with Kumasi-based Akoma Fm monitored by MyNewsGH.com suggested.
President Nana Akufo Addo launching the fight against illegal mining promised he will put his presidency on the line should he fail to curb the canker which is destroying lands, forest and water bodies in the country.
However, after half a decade, the President and his government have failed to stop the miners from destroying the country’s natural resources.
Meanwhile, some government officials and party executives of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have been cited for engaging in illegal mining.
However, speaking on the matter in his interview, Executive Director of ASEPA Mr. Mensah Thompson says since the first fight didn’t bear any fruit, this second wave of the fight will not bring any good result urging Ghanaians not to be content with the president’s actions.
“The president should be coming with an apology. What happened when he launched the first one and allocated money for soldiers to go into the bush? What shows those he is sending now will bring anything different is going to come out of it. Therefore we cannot be just content because the president said he has launched a second wave”.
ASEPA insisted that before the President begins with his second fight, he must first account for all that was spent in the first fight with a vivid explanation.
“There is absolutely no hope for the fight against galamsey under president Akufo-Addo because a president whose appointee received bribes to engage in galamsey and still, that appointee is still at the Jubilee House”, Mr. Thompson chided describing the president as “shameful”.
Government Bans Small Scale Mining in 2017
In the early months of the year 2017 after being sworn in as President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo waged a war against illegal mining amidst the notion of reclaiming damaged natural resources of the country especially water bodies.
The fight had since not yielded the needed results the country wanted.
In strengthening the fight, Operation Vanguard (OV) a task force that consisted of officers of Ghana Police Service and the military was formed by the current government.
However, with all these efforts by the government, the small scale miners have said the government has failed to curb the menace.