The Media Coalition against Galamsey has disclosed that it will petition the two leading presidential candidates, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to openly declare their revulsion against illegal mining activities, popularly known as galamsey.
Convener of the coalition, Ing. Kenneth Ashigbey, in an interview with Selorm Adonoo on The Big Issue on Channel One TV and Citi FM, emphasised “the illegality of mining has nothing to do with the scale and again, when you played the labour statement, they called for a ban on all forms of mining around waterbodies and they did not say ban small-scale mining.”
Ing Ashigbey also clarified the demands of the coalition, explaining that it is not calling for a ban on all mining activities but a state of emergency and enforcement of Ghana’s mining laws to deal with the destruction being caused to the environment and water bodies.
He disclosed that the coalition’s next move will be to urge both the NDC and NPP presidential candidates to declare their stance against galamsey.
“The Media Coalition Against Galamsey is not calling for a ban. We are calling for a declaration of a state of emergency and enforcing the laws that we have. The NDC and the NPP sat in Parliament and passed LI 2462 and if you see the people who have been given these permits to go into the forest reserves, we are saying this LI should be revoked and it is the president who can revoke the LI by replacing it with a new LI and if you don’t do that, you will not be able to resolve the problem.
“To deal with the issue of politicisation, we are going to be calling on the current Vice President, and the former president [John Dramani Mahama], who is the presidential candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), to also openly declare their revulsion for what is happening and their support for the crisis efforts.”
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