Paa Kwesi Schandorf, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, has shockingly said it does not matter if Ghana’s illegal mining menace, popularly known as galamsey, had worsened under the John Mahama-led government.
Speaking on Channel One TV, Paa Kwasi Schandorf was responding to claims by A Rocha Ghana that illegal mining had worsened under the current NDC administration.
Although he stressed that he was not admitting that galamsey had worsened, Paa Kwesi Schandorf said such a development would not matter in the broader context of efforts to tackle the menace.
“It doesn’t matter if it has worsened. I am not admitting if it has worsened, but it also doesn’t matter because…” he said.
Paa Kwesi Schandorf, who also acts as the NAIMOS Spokesperson, has drawn more spotlight on the Mahama government rhetoric on illegal mining amid public demands for stronger enforcement.
In related news, President John Dramani Mahama has dismissed claims that he promised Ghanaians to declare a state of emergency to tackle illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.
Speaking during a town hall meeting with the Ghanaian community in the Tri-State Area of the United States of America with Ghanaians in New York on Friday, September 25, President Mahama stressed that he never announced plans to invoke a state of emergency.
According to John Mahama, he said the use of a state of emergency should be a measure to be used only as a last resort.
Mahama claimed that the state of emergency is not useful at the moment because galamsey takes place across 10 regions of the country.
President Mahama stated, “They said I said a state of emergency. I never ever said that. I never said I’d declare a state of emergency, but states of emergency are useful; you declare them as a last resort.
If you declare a state of emergency, you normally declare it in an isolated area, and you deal with the issue. You concentrate all your energy there and deal with the issue. And you finish it, and you lift the state of emergency. They are very temporary”.
“Now, what people don’t understand is that galamsey is in 10 regions of Ghana. You declare a state of emergency; where are you going to declare the state of emergency?”
He further argued, “ That 48-hour rule doesn’t apply when there’s a state of emergency. And so the point is, we still have that power, but we must exercise it as a last resort”.
“We have forest reserves that have had incursions into them. And so what we’ve done is we’ve concentrated on the forest reserves.
“Nine of those forest reserves were considered red zones because of the degree of incursion into the forest reserves and the fact that those in those forest reserves were armed, and the forest guards could not go into the reserve for fear of their lives. Today, in those nine forest reserves, the army has cleared all the people out of them,” he added.
Watch the video below:
“It doesn’t matter if galamsey has worsened under our government; it is normal”
— yaw. (@yabbanx) September 28, 2026
— NAIMOS Spokesperson and Media Relations Officer at the Lands Ministry, Paa Kwesi Schandorf pic.twitter.com/4oSWa6ZWWe
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