By Morkporkpor Anku
Accra, July 10, GNA- The State has failed to stop illegal mining, known as Galamsey, not because it lacked laws, institutions and regulatory capacity but due to State Capture.
State capture is a deeper form of political paralysis, one in which powerful political and economic elites target State institutions deliberately repurpose them to serve their selfless interest rather than the public good.
Professor Jasper Abembia Ayelazuno, Co-author of a Book on “State Capture in the Militarized Fight Against Illegal Small-Scale Goldmining in Ghana” was speaking at the launch in Accra.
The Book launched by Third World Network Africa has Dr Maxwell Akansina Aziabah, as Co-author, which seeks to contribute a fresh state-theoretical perspective, state capture, to unravel the puzzle of illegal mining.
It argued that the chaotic, criminal, and ruinous Ghanaian ASGM sector known in Ghanaian parlance as the galamsey menace was caused by state capture.
Prof Ayelazuno said the State had been captured by the mining power-elites, something that allowed them to undertake criminal and destructive mining with impunity.
He said there was the political will from the former President, Nana Akufo-Addo’s public vow to put his Presidency on the line to achieve his goal of fighting the menace.
“But in this case, we have a President who clearly showed that he had the political will to fight these mines. And this is where the puzzle comes from, ” he said.
The Author said in pursuit of this commitment, the government launched high-profile security interventions.
He said the State deployed hundreds of military personnel to mining areas across a certain part of the country and yet, in addition, significant public resources were committed to the operation.
He said the state allocated several millions of dollars, by some estimation it was over GH30 million, to provide resources to fight the menace.
“Despite all this, this unprecedented scheme, Galamsey continues to ravage the lives of ordinary people, to ravage the environment and make the lives of the rural populace miserable,” he added.
“Why would a capable state like the democratic state of Ghana commit all these resources or make the military one of the best in Africa, yet they couldn’t defeat the Galamsey,” he added.
He said despite Ghana’s reputation as a relatively well-governed, peaceful, and democratic country, its Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining (ASGM) sector was characterized predominantly by informality, criminality, and horrendous environmental and human-development effects.
This include the ferocious denuding of the country’s vegetation cover, toxic pollution of water bodies, and serious health and safety hazards inflicted on the rural populace in mining areas.
He said these State captors were not doing artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), but rather capitalist mechanized mining (CMM), which ravaged the environment on a large scale and with breakneck speed.
“State capture in Ghana’s ASGM sector was demonstrated clearly in the book through vivid description and rigorous analysis of the failed militarised fight against the galamsey menace between 2017 and 2024,” he said.
The book argued that the state failed spectacularly to win the war, the evidence of which is the aggravation of the deleterious environmental and human effects of galamsey.
The Author said the lesson for the President Mahama-led government was clear and evident.
“Illegal mining is not merely an environmental problem, it is a symptom of state capture and any genuine attempt to dismantle Galamsey may be doomed with the dismantling of the power structures that protect and benefit from it,” he said.
He said the government must realise that repeating the militarised threat of the past with a brutal form would not replace the State from its captors, adding that the movement called for bold, peaceful leadership.
Prof Ayelazuno said it demanded the dismantling of any capture networks, the restoration of institutional autonomy and integrity, the protection of civic activists, journalists, and whistleblowers, and a shift away from primitive, top-down enforcement towards community-led governance and simplify the legalisation.
“If the Mahama-led administration fails to act decisively, if it maintains a federal trajectory, it risks reinforcing the very shadow State that had hollowed out Ghana’s democratic institution,” he said.
Prof. Abdulai Abdul Gafaru, the Reviewer of the Book, said the book represented a very bold analytical attempt to interplace a persistent and voiceless crisis of illegal small-scale mining through the lens of the concept of state capture.
GNA
Christian Akorlie