The Centre for Public Opinion and Awareness (CenPOA), a non-partisan, non-governmental civil organisation founded to promote civil engagement and participation in public administration, has asked President Akufo-Addo to declare a state of emergency on illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

CenPOA believes galamsey is now an organised crime, and the best approach to dealing with it is for the President to declare a state of emergency.

A statement issued and signed by Executive Director Michael Donyinah Mensah lamented that the destruction of our water bodies and environment through galamsey over the past decade has reached alarming proportions, eliciting public outcry and condemnation from civil society organisations, the clergy, and other groups.

CenPOA noted that the country has lost a quarter of its vegetative cover since 2000, and this situation is expected to be worsened by uncontrolled mining activities, especially in forest reserves, amidst the growing effects of climate change.

“Though the government is implementing afforestation initiatives and land reclamation programmes to address these imminent challenges, this is just a drop in the ocean and in no way a cure for the impending environmental doom.”

“CenPOA strongly believes that the recent spike in environmental destruction caused by mining activities directly results from government policy failure. The government’s approach to sanitising the small-scale mining sector, which saw the implementation of mining sector reforms, including the legalisation of all forms of mining activities to aid better supervision and effective regulation, has largely been unsuccessful,” the statement added.

According to CenPOA, the issue at hand is not just about galamsey since there are reports of many legally registered small-scale mining companies using crude mining methods and being involved in environmentally dangerous mining practices.

“There are also reports that very prominent persons, including politicians, are neck-deep in mining activities, using their influence to break the law with impunity and making this cancer very difficult to fight. In fact, galamsey is now an organised crime and will require very drastic measures to be able to curb it.”