Former Member of Parliament(MP) For Akwatia constituency and Deputy Director of legal affairs for the largest opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC), Baba Jamal, has slammed the government for its decision to burn excavators belonging to illegal miners.
According to him the burning of those excavators is sheer stupidity and lacks sense.
Though he was forced to retract his statement, he, however, noted that there was no better way to describe the government’s decision to burn the excavators.
Speaking on Okay FM’s ‘Ade Akye Abia’ programme, he added that the President’s directive to have these excavators burnt clearly shows that he does not even trust his appointee, and that alone even defeats his galamsey fight.
“Why must government decide to burn these excavators that are worth thousands of dollars? These excavators can be useful in so many ways. They can be distributed to the district assemblies through a transferred ownership process to not end up in these mining areas again,” he suggested.
“But to burn them is a no for me,” he added.
Military personnel deployed to kick out persons illegally mining in forest reserves and along water bodies in the Eastern Region have burnt 14 excavators, pumping machines, and other mining equipment in the Atewa East and West Districts.
This action by the anti-galamsey taskforce comes barely a week after the Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners held a press conference at Nsutam, calling on the President and the government to come out with a policy document on the modus operandi of the anti-galamsey military task force.
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