Once again, developments in our rural areas have demonstrated beyond any doubt that we live in a crazy country.

Why do I say that? It's because the Ghana Water Company has – ONCE AGAIN– found it necessary to shut down the operations of its water treatment plant at Bunso, in the Eastern Region.

Why? Because – ONCE AGAIN – galamsey activities on the Birem River, from which the plant draws its water, have resulted in the river's waters being so turbid that the GWC plant’s machinery cannot refine the water and pump it into homes for human consumption.

The most surprising thing about this development is that this is not the first time the plant is being shut down because the Birem’s waters are too polluted to be pumped into the plant and treated.

A similar situation arose two years ago. And there had been other shutdowns before then. Not only that – a treatment plant at nearby Kyebi, which also draws its water from the same Birem, was similarly shut down some time ago for precisely the same reason.

Isn’t it “crazy” (as I suggest in my headline) that the same thing can happen at the same place in the same circumstances, and be allowed to keep happening again and again and again and again?

ALLOWED to happen? Yes, ALLOWED to happen.

The Birem’s waters did not become untreatable as a result of an asteroid falling into the river from the heavens! No, the water was polluted by human action. And human action can, elsewhere, be preempted and stopped! But so crazy are we in Ghana that we can neither successfully preempt, nor stop, human action, even if it does us such great harm as depriving us of WATER!

Indeed, I often have to ask myself, “What sort of people are these my fellow countrymen? I love them to bits and am always presenting them to the rest of the world, through my writings, as a responsible people with a culture and civilisation, dating back to hundreds of years, that intelligently puts human rights at the centre of human needs. We did this through a "communal" system of social organisation that predates European socialism/communism by hundreds of years.

We know that humans commonly need water, food and air in order to survive life on this planet. We therefore have sacred rules and traditions about how to obtain and share these necessities.

For instance, most of our ethnic groups share land equally among all the inhabitants of a village or town.

I have seen with my own eyes, a virgin forest being carved up, with each person given an ‘acreage’, whose borders are demarcated by growing on them, an evergreen, thorny plant called

ntommereh.

You cannot make a farm beyond the area where the ntommereh marks the bounds of your property.

The reason why this was done was that our ancestors realised fully well that some people are unduly greedy and would, if allowed, cheat others and seize for themselves, a greater amount of what had been shared equally.

Our ancestors would, if a dispute arose, send courtiers to go and inspect how the ntommereh marked the land. Once the ntommereh had spoken, the litigation was at an end. The would-be cheater would be punished. And the winner would be ordered to “thank” the chief and his councillors. So litigation was successfully short-circuited. In order to preserve peace among the entire populace.

In other words, our society was based on the carrot-and-stick principle. And it worked. Until the colonisers came and introduced new laws that sometimes fostered selfishness. Now, at both the formal level, where a codified legal system operates, and also at the informal level, where interpersonal relationships converge, we find confusion.

A person says, “I want gold and I don't care if I destroy a water-body in the process.” And because he holds an important position in something called a “political party”, he is allowed to destroy rivers and forests which our ancestors came and met “long long ago” and have preserved for our use.

The system of wanton destruction of essential natural resources is called galamsey. And we have been seeing its disastrous results, on a daily basis, for about twenty years now. But no-one is bold enough to (as our ancestors would have done) tell the malefactors, "If you want to destroy the water and forests on which our descendants will depend to be able to live, you are nation-wreckers and must be tried by the entire society and your fate sealed by their judgement". Instead, we have been pussyfooting aròund the problem and it has grown and grown until our water purification plants are being shut down!

Is that not crazy?

Everyone knows about gaslamsey’s destructive capabilities. And yet our people of power refuse to take action of a decisive nature that can wipe it out of the face of the earth.

Please read the report below and ask yourself whether the influential person being quoted, really ought to have waited, until matters had reached a point where water treatment plants are being shut down, before urging action to stop galamsey:

QUOTE:

“The National House of Chiefs has asked traditional leaders across the country to play key roles in addressing the long-standing issue of illegal mining as it continues to pose threats to water bodies and forest reserves.

“Following the recent arrest of individuals over illegal mining, the National House of Chiefs has tasked traditional leaders to show active involvement in the fight against the menace.

“Speaking at a National House of Chiefs meeting in Kumasi, its President, Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II stressed that without the active involvement of chiefs, the government will not be able to address the illegal mining menace.

“He has thus called on the government to collaborate with traditional authorities to help fight the canker.

“The government should collaborate with the traditional authorities to draw up a detailed plan and provide adequate resources to help fight Galamsey and the menace associated with it, then we can plan follow-up actions to address the negative effects on our environment.”

Ogyeahoho Yaw Gyebi II further noted that the canker if not urgently mitigated will adversely affect the quality of crops such as cocoa. According to him, some cocoa farmers are being harassed and threatened to sell their lands due to illegal mining. He stated that the country might start importing both water and cocoa if care is not taken.

“There are also fears that the soil poisoned by galamseyers can affect not only the production of cocoa but also the quality of cocoa that we produce ''. END QUOTE. Yes "better late than never!" But isn't it disgraceful that so many of our influential people seem to have been anaesthised by the thought of selfishly benefiting from the harmful mining of gold on the rivers and lands our descendants need if they are to SURVIVE IN A NATION CALLED GHANA?