#saynotoillegalmining #ipledge #iamsimonpeteradabor

#Look@GalamseyAgain

Barracks Chief to subordinate, "Commander, go, arrest all galamsey operators around Wassa Japa, including their excavators and their chang-fan machines as well as their black", "Yes Sir Sir". Then Soldier calls the galamsey guru, "Honourable, please tell your guys that we are coming on an operation in their area so they should be smart and be on the watch out". Honourable sends his guy to transfer some little cedis through mobile money to Commander and it is a done deal. A concerned citizen invites a journalist to come and make a story out of it and the Journalist is demanding coverage allowance. This scenario explains briefly why everyone is silent, and galamsey is on the rise.
Who is destroying our environment? How much money has Ghana lost through illegal mining activities? 

Who is to blame?

I smile anytime I hear the usual hypocritical rhythm about this "galamsey" menace and I feel sad because I see no truth around me in the country while everyone is making the "noise" with the hastag #SayNoToGalamsey.
Coming from a highly "galamsey" prevalent community myself, I feel strongly within my spirit that there is an antedote to this age old phenomenon. The streams and rivers I used to swim and even have fond memories of my childhood days along the banks of some of them have gradually disappeared before my very eyes and what I see now are stagnant pools of multi-coloured water bodies as though for fish ponds or artificial lakes. Hitherto far away forest farms have become very closer to my town because the vegetation cover is no more as though I were in the savanah belt of the country. I therefore wish something could be done about this because I need something interesting to tell my children about my hometown and its forest. Outright wipe out? Temporary hold up? Laiser faire? Rhetoric!

The fact that Small Scale Mining employs over 1.5million people is a right guess of the huge employment benefit and a clear indication of its significant role in our country's job creation drive, if the venture is properly managed. It is also worth noting that a majority of the illegal small scale miners are unskilled and since their operations are not regulated, they do not pay direct tax to government nor do they pay royalties to the respective traditional authorities. 

What I think we need to do is to put the appropriate measures in place to mobilise, train and regulate their activities because a halt in the activities will render a huge number of youth unemployed and thus add up to the already soaring rate of national unemployment.

Through the mobilisation exercise there will be an appropriate database for all those engaged in the venture, which will be a tool for revenue mobilisation for the respective communities, the MMDAs concerned and the government as a whole. Again, with proper training, the miners will be equipped to know the best practices in the mining, such as land reclamation exercises, which will be less detrimental to the environment while appropriate regulations can be done through the law enforcing agencies who would then be appreciated by the miners as partners and not their foes, in the harnessing of the valuable resource.
By so doing, a new and better face will be given to the small scale mining industry where there will be a limitation in the periodic intimidation and exploitation by certain securities agencies, which leads to loss of revenue to government through corruption, tax evasion and also enable the small scale miners to operate within guidelines set up under appropriate regulations. This will enable small scale miners to work happily to earn their living in a regulated,  secure and lawful environment.
Yes, there is surely a way out, and not join the absolute no trumpetters. I blow my own trumpet, 

          #Look@GalamseyAgain

Simon Peter Adabor (0243946642 / 0209885337)