Awula Serwah, the Executive Director of Eco-Conscious Citizens, has told President John Dramani Mahama to declare a targeted state of emergency in areas affected by illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.
According to Awula Serwah, the time for lamentations is over, calling on President Mahama to declare a targeted state of emergency to protect the country’s water bodies, farmlands and forest reserves.
Awula Serwah urged the Mahama government to move beyond expressing concern about the destruction and take decisive action to remove miners from affected areas.
Speaking in an interview on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, October 29, Awula Serwah stated, “The time for lamentations is over. Let’s stop this illegal mining. Declare a targeted state of emergency”.
“Go in there, remove them, remove them from our water bodies, from our farmland, from our forest reserves. And then let’s station response teams close by. And then get the communities involved,” she added.
She further argued that Ghanaians must demand greater accountability saying, “Ghanaians are being taken for a ride, and I’m sad to say that, you know, we deserve the rulers we have. We are not angry enough”.
“But when I say angry, I don’t advocate violence. It’s counterproductive, and it’s not anything I’ll ever advocate,” she said
“We are not angry enough even to do a sit-down demonstration to say that you cannot continue poisoning us. Stop this illegal mining,” she said.
“And let’s stop this idea of livelihood. It’s more greed,” she said.
She argued that the money people make from illegal mining is often greater than what they would earn from conventional employment, making the activity more attractive despite its consequences.
“Because you see, when you have a job nine to five, you’re not going to earn the kind of money you believe you’ll earn from illegal mining. So it’s not a question of livelihood,” she said.
She further disclosed that 2.5 million peasant farmers were at risk of losing their livelihoods saying, “In fact, over 2.5 million peasant farmers are at risk of losing their livelihoods because of the activities of the environmental terrorists”.
“We don’t think about them, the peasant farmers, the persons who have planted shea butter plantations which are being destroyed, palm oil plantations, cocoa farmers. All we think about is the mining”.
“And we know who they are. They were named in the report. And that administration, His Excellency the President, has said that some of his own people might be involved,” she said.
“The Atruinso community, what did we do? We chose to arrest and prosecute the activists on trumped-up charges and allow the miners to go free. The activists were trying to protect the stream,” she said.
“It took us two years to have the charges dropped. So we are not very serious, and we don’t seem to understand that we are being poisoned,” she said.
“I’m not being dramatic. When we eat, we don’t know where the food is coming from. Our environment is being destroyed. Our forest reserves are being desolated,” she said.
Meanwhile, Sammy Gyamfi, the Chief Executive Officer of GoldBod, has said formalising such unlicensed artisanal and small-scale miners (ASMs) ‘galamseyers’ is a better approach to fighting illegal mining than chasing them with soldiers.
According to Sammy Gyamfi, the Responsible Cooperative Mining and Skills Development Programme (rCOMSDEP) is an ASM formalisation initiative aimed at transforming such unlicensed ASMs into licensed and responsible ASMs to promote sustainability in the sector.
He argued that the Goldbod holds the view that properly organised small-scale mining offers one of the clearest pathways from mineral ownership in law to indigenous ownership in practice.
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