A renowned economist and brother of the late President John Evans Atta Mills, Dr Cadman Atta Mills, has said the John Mahama government is not taking the illegal mining (galamsey) fight seriously.
According to Cadman Atta Mills, the government is not doing enough to tackle the galamsey menace.
He further lamented the long-term consequences of illegal mining on future generations,
Cadman Mills warned that children are at risk of being born with severe health conditions due to exposure to toxic substances.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, Cadman Mill shared his own experience, “You know, I was in Ghana very recently. One of the things I didn’t tell you is that I was very sick”.
I had been away for only three years, but just drinking the water in the Central Region, not even drinking, but using it to cook and using it to brush my teeth, I had a major stomach upset almost all the time that I was there.
That was a click to me that this thing is not some theory, and you don’t have to be in the mining zone in order to be affected by it”, Dr Mills added.
He added, “Its impact on generations to come, children being born with heavy metal…”
“I see, and maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think I am, that the government is a little conflicted in its fight against galamsey. It is not taking it seriously,” he said on the show.
According to him, the government is conflicted because it benefits from galamsey.
“The benefit that clearly the government is receiving because they are diverting the foreign exchange that has gone into unofficial channels into the official channels is doing a lot to stabilise the value of the cedi, so that is one of the reasons why the government is a little bit conflicted about it (fight against galamsey)”, he explained.
Also, Cadman Atta-Mills, in a post on social media, fired shots at the John Mahama-led NDC government.
Cadman Atta-Mills boldly stated he refuses to be silenced on galamsey menance.
According to him, one is not disloyal because one criticises one’s political party’s policies.
In a post on X on September 22, he wrote, “You are not ‘disloyal’ because you criticise your political party’s policies and sometimes with passion. A political party is not (and should not be) a monolith.
“In speaking against your party’s policies, you encourage debate and increase the chances of better policies being adopted,” he wrote.
Cadman Mills added, “I refuse to be silenced on galamsey (on other policies), because of: (1) the patently false claim that I was silent on the misdeeds of the previous government in mining (I wrote volumes), or
(2) that as a “party elder”, I should not publicly express my disagreements with my party’s policies.
I am a party member and elderly (very elderly), but I am not “a party elder”. Those (muzzled) creatures belong to the party’s “council of elders”.
Additionally, Cadman Atta-Mills, in another post, said illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, is killing Ghanaians.
Cadman Atta Mills criticised the John Mahama-led NDC government over their poor handling of illegal mining.
According to Cadman Atta-Mills, he refuses to pay for the accolades the government is receiving for the cedi recovery at the expense of his health or life.
In a post on X, accompanied by a video of the galamsey menace, Cadman Mills wrote, “I refuse to pay for the accolades President Mahama and the NDC are receiving for the cedi’s recovery with my health or life.
Call it galamsey or ‘legal’ small-scale mining (when bankrolled by the politically connected). It is killing us. #StopGalamseyNow”, he added.
Meanwhile, the Fix The Country Movement has demanded that the John Mahama-led government declare a State of Emergency on galamsey and repeal Legislative Instrument (LI) 2462.
Watch the video below: