The failure to address illegal mining holistically is a leadership problem, according to Kamal Alhassan, Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Opinion and Awareness (CenPOA).
The researcher claimed that pursuing only miners is not a thorough strategy, because the problem’s origin is not precisely there.
The problem he opined is with leadership, and not only are they sacred, but a lot of them are also involved in the illegal mining activities.
Responding to a question on whether the state of emergency would be an effective approach, he doubted, stating that the police and military officers to be deployed to deal with the menace have been compromised.
He suggested that ‘’if we want to declare a state of emergency, then those who would declare, those would enforce it, and those who would play an oversight role must be clean.” All these people have been compromised’’.
He said when the state of emergency is also declared, the labourers at the illegal mining sites are the ones that would suffer, and the ‘big fishes’ who sponsor these activities will not be affected.
Kamal Alhassan, said because we are in an election year, the galamsey debate has become a dicey situation, and it was not the time to throw anything there and see if it would work”.
‘’We need a very comprehensive solution. We don’t always solve problems in a forceful manner. We need to apply wisdom in dealing with the menace. It is not always that we need guns and force,’’ he said on Frontline on Rainbow Radio 87.5FM with host Kwabena Agyapong.
He declared that the use of the soldiers and police officers has not been effective since they have been compromised, underscoring the need for authorities to use technology in managing the crisis.
He pointed out that galamsey arrests usually target either political opponents of the ruling government or individuals other than those known to be contaminating water sources.
‘’When they raid these mining sites, we know the targets they are after. They don’t arrest the people we are all aware are engaging in illegal mining and polluting our waters. They target people who are either political opponents to arrest them for galamsey or people who they are trying to take business away from. That is why I am saying, Let’s not just think; because we have sent the police and military in there, we can resolve the issue. Secondly, the way we deploy soldiers and police for every situation is not the best. What are we doing with the drone technology? We don’t need 1,000 soldiers. We need a few drones to monitor these areas. We can use satellite imagery to do that. Somebody can sit in Accra and still be effective fighting galamsey using technology. It is an issue of incompetence, lack of foresight, and so many other issues that plague our governance.’’
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana