The Ranking Member of the Local Government and Rural Development Select Committee of Parliament, Edwin Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has expressed his indignation at the call by President Nana Akufo-Addo for a new initiative to be adopted in the fight against galamsey in the country.
President Akufo-Addo, at the meeting with some chiefs, metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCEs) to find new ways to deal with the galamsey menace at the Manhyia palace in the Ashanti Region on Wednesday, 5 October 2022, said: “We have tried many initiatives in the fight against galamsey, still we have not won the fight against galamsey in the country.”
According to Mr Vanderpuije, however, considering the plundering that has occurred, “I don’t think there is something the president can do in the next two years to salvage the galamsey menace.”
The opposition MP for Ododododiodio in the Greater Accra Region expressed these doubts when he spoke on 505 on Class 91.3 FM hosted by Korku Lumor.
He noted that there are so many laws like the mining regulations and mining Acts to deal with the galamsey situation.
He said the president, with his cohorts, designed many of these initiatives to cause devastation to the country’s forest cover and water bodies.
Mr Vanderpuye argued that the president’s warning that he was not going to shield anybody in the renewed fight against galamsey was a charade because he had already shielded enough in the fight.
“Hasn’t the President shielded the former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof Frimpong Boateng, under whose watchful eyes some 500 flew into thin air?” he questioned.
He again asserted that the likes of Mr Charles Bissue, the former Secretary to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), is walking free despite his alleged involvement in the galamsey menace.
He maintained that there is a tall list of party galamseyers who have been shielded by Mr Akufo-Addo.
According to him, it is too late for the president to turn things around because of the level of devastation caused by the illegal miners.
He said the failure of the president to sustain the fight against galamsey was a situation of sheer incompetence, complicity, unwillingness and dishonesty.
“This government cannot do anything to compensate for the loss because of galamsey,” he said.