Dr John Osae-Kwapong, a research fellow at the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) and a political analyst has highlighted the cautious approach of Ghanaian leaders towards the issue of illegal mining, commonly known as “galamsey,” attributing it to the politics surrounding the menace and elections.
According to Dr. Osae-Kwapong, the political climate and the desire to secure votes have made leaders hesitant to take a firm stance against the environmentally destructive practice.
In an interview on The Big Issue on Channel One TV on Saturday, Dr Osae-Kwapong said leadership from the time of former President John Agyekum Kufuor had tried to address the menace.
However, he said he was beginning to feel that due to the politics and elections persons contesting leadership are careful what they say concerning galamsey and how they intend addressing it.
“I realised that President Kufuor for example had what he called Operation Flash Out which tried to use our security forces, the military in particular to try and end this menace. John Mahama’s administration in 2013 had the inter-ministerial task force on illegal small-scale mining and then most recently in 2017, President Akufo-Addo had the operation vanguard.
“The distinguishing feature among these three approaches was that in the case of President Akufo-Addo, they also tried to institute an alternative livelihood programme that said look we stop the galamsey and then we transition you into an alternative livelihood so that we do not deny you your source of income.
“…Over the years leadership has tried to get their hands around this menace…Leadership still wants to do something about it because I believe that they all recognised the dangers around it. I am beginning to get the feeling that the politics of it particularly in an election year may be making leadership and those who are contesting elections this year a little careful in how they frame the galamsey issue and how they promise to deal with or not to deal with it,” he stated.
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