Historically, the practice of traditional ‘galamsey’ (illegal small-scale mining) has been with us from time immemorial and serves as a form of livelihood for those living close to mining areas.

I have always maintained that the kind of galamsey operations we have seen now under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is a new dimension, and I term it "High-Tech Galamsey (HTG)’ activities that have destroyed our biodiversity-rich forest reserves, clean rivers, and cocoa farms for gold to benefit only a few individual operators and financiers in the small-scale gold mining sector.

The ravaging HTG operations have unfortunately flourished under the Akufo-Addo administration. Bawumia-led regime because of its complicity and lack of leadership to fight this dangerous environmental problem.

President Akufo-Addo, together with Dr. Bawumia, has been highly insincere with
Ghanaians regarding the galamsey fight. Both have failed, and we are just looking for HTG operations to cause a lot of human and environmental havoc if this existential threat to our future is not well addressed as soon as possible.

It is highly likely that the flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Bawumia, cannot contain this worsening HTG phenomenon caused by the regime he is part of. Like corruption, Dr. Bawumia will be complicit, and he will not have the political will to stop the current HTG operations if he were elected to be president in 2024.

For instance, Dr. Bawumia will not prosecute his NPP gurus engaged in HTG operations who were exposed by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng’s damning reports.

Akufo-Addo and Bawumia are only using lip service to fight galamsey, and the latter cannot do anything different from the former. Galamseyers are rather emboldened to engage in this life-threatening and unsustainable practice.

However, I can bet my last penny on John Dramani Mahama to contain the frightening HTG operations after 2024 for various reasons.

Former President Mahama will contain ongoing HTG activities because of his previous record in the fight against traditional galamsey-protected cocoa farms, major river bodies, and forest reserves in mining areas. The current destruction of forest reserves and pollution of rivers from HTG operations under this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime clearly demonstrates the difference between how Mahama and Akufo-Addo handled the galamsey fight.

During the media encounter with Mahama on July 7, 2024, he was highly emphatic about how his next regime will effectively deal with the worrying HTG phenomenon. He promised to decentralize the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission to every district where mining activities are taking place.

Former President Mahama also proposed some alternative policy interventions in the mining sector. For instance, his next regime will put in place a blue water initiative to clean up the polluted water bodies and use artificial intelligence (AI) to combat this unfortunate phenomenon that threatens our very existence.

To find a sustainable solution to this HTG-headed problem and engender sustainable small-scale mining, former President Mahama is committed to bringing together universities and traditional leaders to come up with practical solutions to this environmental problem.

He also indicated that appointees in his next government will not have mining concessions in forest reserves to avoid conflicts of interest. President Mahama will effectively and sincerely fight this HTG phenomenon. Ghanaians should thus give him the mandate to arrest this urgent situation as well as reset the country.