The Technical Advisor for the UK Ghana Gold Program, Dr. Steve Manteaw, has attributed the failure in the fight against illegal mining (galamsey) to a lack of funding from leadership.

In an exclusive interview with GhanaWeb after a roundtable discussion in Accra on Thursday, November 28, 2024, Dr. Manteaw expressed concern about how the government's inability to provide sustainable funding has hindered the positive impact of their efforts.

He mentioned that his attention was drawn to a report on the small-scale mining sector which highlighted concerns about how district assemblies have struggled to sustain the fight against galamsey.

He added that his checks revealed there had been no dedicated budget line for addressing the illegal mining menace in the successive budgets since 2020.

“I cannot tell why the government has not set aside a budget to fight the galamsey menace. It came to my attention during the launch of a report on the small-scale mining sector that the district assemblies have not been able to sustain the fight against galamsey on the ground on account of not having a budget to finance their operations and the fact that they could not prosecute the campaign on their meagre common fund budget.

“It was brought to our attention that it costs substantially to evacuate one excavator from the forest, resources that the assemblies do not have. So, I took the trouble to look at successive budgets starting from 2020 to 2024 and in all these 4 years, I did not find a budget line for dealing with the illegal mining issues,” he said.

Dr. Manteaw, expressing his concern over the development, pointed out that despite the government's efforts, the lack of consistent and sustainable funding has been a key factor in its failures.

“That for me was a big concern because it affects the sustainability of the campaign. I checked with the Minerals Commission and the information I got was that the galamsey fight was being prosecuted on the Minerals Commission budget. To prosecute a national campaign on the budget of a single entity for me was unfortunate.

“It was not a minerals commission problem but a national problem and has to be nationally funded substantially to be able to deal with the problem decisively and in my view, the lack of regular sustainable funding for the galamsey fight is partly to account for the failures in dealing with the menace,” he noted.

He therefore called for the adoption of a national approach, supported by national funding, to effectively tackle the menace.

Watch Dr Manteaw’s interview on GhanaWeb TV below:



MAG/ADG