Burning of excavators not the best solution to fight galamsey

The Deputy National Organizer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Madi Jibril, believes the new measures employed by the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry to fight ‘galamsey’ are short-term and would hardly yield desirable results.

Madi Jibril explained that it is essential not to only think of medium and long-term solutions that would aid in solving the problem but also avoid using the same approach in the past while expecting different results.

“We need to try and find the head-on solutions to the problem. This is not the first time we have burnt people’s excavators. In 2013 they burnt over 200 excavators, did it deter people from going back to work? No. So it means this is not the solution to the problem,” Madi Jibril told Reynold Agyemang on ‘Pae Mu Ka’ Accra-based Kingdom FM 107.7

“If we could recall we bought about 3 million worth of drones to try and fight this problem, using them to patrol our water bodies. Ask yourself if that thing brought about the needed solution.

I heard the defense minister talking about using helicopters to be patrolling, how long can we sustain this? So it means this one is a short-term solution we are trying to use but at the end of the day we should always think about the medium and long term.”

Madi Jibril added that the Ministry must engage and educate sub-chiefs, the district committees, the assemblies and the town folks on the need to fight illegal mining