File photo of a galamsey site in Ghana
A former lecturer at the African University College of Communication (AUCC), Justice Siaw says the infusion of partisan politics has immensely damaged the country’s efforts in the fight against illegal mining.
In a move blending faith and activism, the Catholic Bishops of Ghana took to the streets of Accra in a unique form of protest—one that replaced provocative placards and chants with rosaries and prayers.
“Come with your rosary, and for those unable to, you are still welcome to pray with us. We must unite in faith to protect our land from destruction,” the bishops urged Ghanaians at a press conference. Their plea cuts to the heart of Ghana’s crisis with illegal mining, which has ravaged the country’s water bodies and forest reserves.
Speaking to Starr FM‘s Joshua Kodjo Mensah, the academic blamed the hurdles in the efforts to rid the country of the environmental scourge on the elevated status our politics had been placed in the conversation.
He said the political groupings which made people see things with biases were “eating the country up” and called for a patriotic approach to a salient issue like illegal mining.
“As for partisan politics, we, as Ghanaians, have made it a major. As far as I’m concerned, it is a minor,” he said on the issue. “So a very major issue like Galamsey, which threatens the very existence of this country, people decide to find out who is speaking. If the person speaking is NPP and I’m NDC, then whatever he’s speaking is not good.”
Mr. Siaw lauded non-partisan bodies including religious and labour organizations for speaking up against the alarming destruction illegal mining was causing to the environment. He insisted that such groups lent credence to the national nature of the galamsey fight.
“And that is why I applaud non-partisan structures like churches, like labour, like all other organizations that are not politically painted, rising up to the issues. And I think that is what has given that national character now that everybody is looking up to. And I think that is what we should start looking at
“We should be seeing things in the national spectacle than partisans. Partisan politics, I mean, I see that. It is somebody’s pill to come and make us who they want us to be.
“It is not something that is in our DNA. We are not created with partisanship,” the lecturer underscored.
Meanwhile, many groups and institutions have publicly criticized the government’s efforts in dealing with illegal gold mining, citing a lack of urgency and seriousness.
