The Board Chairman of the Forest Plantation Development Fund, Professor Martin Oteng-Ababio, has cautioned against calls for a state of emergency in the fight against illegal mining, insisting that sustainable solutions are needed to tackle the menace.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s Face to Face on Tuesday, May 26, he argued that addressing illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, requires a deeper understanding of the factors driving the activity rather than short-term forceful measures.
“State of emergency is not the way. It is about understanding the mathematics in it and trying to find an antidote,” he said.
According to him, the fight against galamsey should be seen as a long-term process and not a one-time action.
“This fight is a process, not an action. Our ability to sustain the fight is the cardinal point in this game,” he stated.
Professor Oteng-Ababio also questioned the effectiveness of using the military to combat illegal mining, saying previous approaches have failed to produce lasting results.
“The fight against illegal mining or the use of the military to fight illegal mining has not been successful and will never be successful unless and until we understand the basic principle underpinning what they are doing,” he said.
He further argued that military interventions in the anti-galamsey fight are often not neutral and tend to affect poor people more than the real financiers behind the operations.
“Because the use of the military is neither apolitical nor in fact it is almost always the poor who suffer. Those who own them go free,” he added.
His comments add to the ongoing national debate over the best approach to tackling illegal mining, which continues to threaten Ghana’s water bodies, forests and farmlands.
