After its deep involvement in illegal mining operations across the country in the past four years, the latest plan to fight illegal mining activities (Galamsey) has yet again exposed the Akufo Addo administration’s lack of commitment against the Galamsey menace.
In the statement announcing the government’s alleged intensification of rooting out illegal mining, the government explicitly stated that it was going to focus only on illegal mining in water bodies.
In the government’s statement issued today, April 28, 2021, the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah stated: “In furtherance of the resolution of the final communique, of the Stakeholder Dialogue on Small Scale Mining on April 14 – 15, 2021 and to ensure that mining within water bodies is immediately stopped; the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has authorised the Ghana Armed Forces, to commence an operation, to remove all persons and logistics involved in mining from Ghana’s water bodies.”
It continues: “The operation commenced at 06000 hours on Wednesday, April 28th, 2021 on the River Pra in the Central and Western regions of Ghana. Two Hundred (200) officers of the Ghana Armed Forces are involved in the operations. The Ministry of Defence and the Ghana Armed Forces will provide detailed brief of development and sustainability efforts at 1200 hours on Friday 30th April 2021.”
Curiously, nothing in the statement mentions the need to extend the fight against illegal mining in forest reserves and cocoa plantations across the country. Just as serious as the destruction of rivers by these illegal miners, they have also destroyed huge swathes of virgin forests and plantations of Ghana’s biggest cash crop-cocoa.
For instance, last week, the Deputy Chief Executive in-Charge of Agronomy and Quality Control at the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Dr Emmanuel Agyemang Dwomoh, revealed how illegal miners had destroyed more than 5,000 hectares of cocoa farmlands in the Western North Region.
In President Akufo Addo’s hometown of Kyebi and its surrounding towns, illegal miners have virtually taken over the town, forcing the government to deploy military checkpoints to check for illegal gold transportation from the area.
Several more areas across the country are experiencing wanton destruction of flora and fauna, as well as these galamsey activities inherently threatening Ghana’s US$ 3 billion cocoa exports.
Cocoa buyers from the European Union have reportedly started detected traces of toxic heavy metals such as mercury used by the illegal miners in some of the country’s cocoa beans, forcing the EU to threaten to ban Ghana’s cocoa if the Galamsey operations continue.
It is therefore strange that the government’s focus is only on illegal mining activities in “water bodies”.
The Akufo Addo administration has chalked a terrible reputation as being directly complicit in the illegal mining activities in the country as its appointees, party officials and military officers deployed to curb the illegal mining activities have been cited as the main culprits.
There have been several instances where the military deployed to these mining sites have been seen heavily protecting illegal Chinese miners and their local conspirators
Also, documentary evidence has exposed some high-profile appointees of the Akufo Addo administration fingered in the illegal mining operations, including Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, the former Minister of Science and Environment and the then-Chairman of the Inter-ministerial Committee Against Illegal Mining (IMCIM) who was caught on tape discussing how to distribute seized illegal mining excavators to party officials to use it to mine their concessions and repatriate funds into the coffers of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Other names such as John Boadu, NPP General Secretary and Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah have all featured in those fingered to be controlling illegal mining concessions. They have denied the allegations, but insiders could swear that they are indeed part of the mining mafia.
While holding his former portfolio as Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo became infamous for his spirited defence of Aisha Huang, a notorious Chinese illegal miner nicknamed “Galamsey Queen”. Aisha Huang has reportedly destroyed several cocoa plantations with the due backing of government officials and had even been named in the murder of a man for resisting her rampage through the farms.
When she was arrested, the Akufo Addo administration refused to prosecute her but allowed her to spirit her loot away to China, where she was later deported.
When confronted during a town hall meeting in the USA, Mr. Osafo Maafo shot down the agitation for Aisha Huang’s prosecution, saying her arrest will not bring any fresh development to Ghana, and that because Ghana was negotiating a questionable US$2 billion Sinohydro loan from China, the Akufo Addo government would not want to offset the cart by arresting the notorious Chinese.
Observers believe that the entire illegal mining operations of the Chinese that have led to the destruction of virgin forests, cocoa plantations and river bodies in Ghana have been under the purview of the Akufo Addo administration all along, hence the failure to stop the mafia-like trade for over four years in the administration’s first term.