Former President John Dramani Mahama has said the next administration of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) will ensure that artisanal small-scale mining, also known as ‘galamsey’, is regulated to provide sustainable employment for the youth.

The regulation, he explained, will ensure that artisanal mining is environmentally friendly to the country’s water bodies.

Addressing separate meetings of mining communities in the Upper Denkyira East and West Constituencies in the Central Region as well as Obuasi East and Obuasi West Constituencies in the Ashanti Region on Monday, 12 November 2018, Mr Mahama said his erstwhile government resorted to new ways of tackling the galamsey problem when it became clear that using the military to clamp down on them was not going to provide a long-term solution.

Mr Mahama said his government, therefore, considered a new legal regime of addressing the issue.

“But the current government is promising a new policy and we are hoping that they implement it to allow small-scale miners to start working immediately. If not, the NDC government to be formed after the 2020 general elections, would implement a new regulation to enable the small-scale miners to work effectively”, he said.

Mr Mahama, who is on a four-day campaign tour of the Ashanti Region, ahead of the flag bearer election of the NDC, also bemoaned the harsh economic conditions prevailing in the country and promised to work hard to reduce the high cost of living if elected in the 2020 elections.