By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Nov. 04, GNA — The AfriKan Continental Union Consult (ACUC) has described illegal mining (galamsey) activities in Ghana as a national betrayal and threat to human survival.
Dr. Benjamin Anyagre Aziginaateeg, the Chief Executive Officer of ACUC, speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), stressed that the continued environmental destruction was a betrayal of national trust and future generations.
Dr. Aziginaateeg stated that “Illegal mining is not just unlawful—it is environmental terrorism.”
He added that Ghana was on the brink of a public health catastrophe similar to the Minamata Disease in Japan (1950s), where mercury-poisoned fish crippled millions of people with birth defects, neurological disorders, blindness and deformities.
He indicated that currently, mercury levels in Ghanaian food and water are rising dangerously, with the consequences already visible in Ghana, cautioning that if nothing changes, future generations will inherit a poisoned land.
“Galamsey is environmental terrorism. It threatens our future, our dignity, and our very survival as a nation. Silence is no longer an option. What we destroy today will destroy us tomorrow,” he cautioned.
He stressed that Ghana must choose survival over greed, indicating that to save Ghana from irreversible destruction, actions were required instead of slogans, suggesting that solutions should include strictly declaring galamsey as a national security threat by law and treating it as organised crime and environmental terrorism.
The ACUC CEO also called for the establishment of the Ghana Environmental Recovery Fund with funding from mining companies, the fining of identified political figures who ignored expert advice on mining agreements, and the sale of confiscated illegal mining assets.
He also called for strict enforcement of laws, ensuring maximum prison sentences for galamsey kingpins, seizure of assets and prosecution of collaborators without political interference in prosecutions.
Dr. Aziginaateeg also urged the government to support the EPA’s nano-liquid decontamination technology as part of restoring Ghana’s water and forests, while conscientiously reforesting destroyed biodiversity zones and putting a ban on mining in all water basins.
He said to nip galamsey in the bud, there was the need to provide alternative livelihoods such as youth employment in agro-processing and reforestation industries and ethical and state-of-the-art small-scale mining initiatives.
He called for the empowerment of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the Forestry Commission with full enforcement powers, while compromised staff should be outrightly dismissed from the service, in addition to naming and shaming corrupt officials.
“Publish financiers of illegal mining, honour environmental defenders like Dormaahene and Nana Quasie Essiem IV.”
According to him, evidence indicated that policy failures, weak laws and poor governance enabled galamsey and paved the way for the current environmental devastation the country faces.
“Allegations of policy mismanagement include granting over 1,600 sq km of virgin land to mining without Ghana securing the mandatory 10% state equity, failure to enforce Act 465 (State Participation in Mining), passing of the Minerals and Mining Act (Act 703, 2006), weakened environmental protections, mining concessions granted in protected forest reserves, loss of over 30,000 football fields’ worth of forest to deforestation, and ignoring the Minerals Commission’s objections and expert warnings. All of these created the legal environment for foreign control of Ghana’s resources.”
He indicated that Ghana once practiced responsible underground mining while protecting forests, water bodies, and fertile lands; however, surface mining, popularly called galamsey, has evolved into a neoliberal state-sponsored environmental crime, destroying entire ecosystems and poisoning generations of Ghanaians.
“Ghana’s shift from underground to mass surface mining did not occur naturally. Investigations and public commentary consistently link illegal mining networks to political actors and party financiers, security operatives, traditional leaders, foreign mining syndicates, and corrupt officials within regulatory agencies.”
GNA
Edited by Benjamin Mensah