A US-based engineer, Dr. Juliet Ohemeng-Ntiamoah, has evealed that certain food products exported from Ghana have been discovered to have elevated levels of heavy metals.
She stated that it is quite unreasonable for critics to claim that residents of Accra need not be concerned about the effects of illegal mining, simply because mining activities do not occur within the city.
“Someone has told me before that, Juliet, you are US-based, so why are you talking about galamsey? I want to say and educate people that even the diaspora is not spared from the effects of galamsey. Why do I say so? The majority of us, and if you are a picky eater like me, although I’ve been in the US for about ten years, I still eat Ghanaian food. So I go to the African market and I buy yam, I buy groceries from there. I was talking to a friend who works at the Ghana Standards Board recently, and she told me that they tested yams being exported and they had high levels of heavy metals.
“So this is a call to those in the diaspora who think that galamsey is only happening in Ghana. The effects of galamsey are coming to us even here in the US… So let alone you are in Accra and you think that galamsey is happening in the Western Region or Ashanti Region. For you, the effects are more prevalent than for those of us here,” she stated during a public discussion on galamsey on the Saturday, October 5, 2024, edition of Newsfile on Accra-based JoyNews.
She emphasized that the current water treatment regime in Ghana does not deal with heavy metal concentrations in water sources, hence the basis to be concerned about the use of chemicals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic in galamsey activities.
“This issue is bigger than the muddy water that we are seeing,” she noted.
Ghana is presently undergoing a civil campaign aimed at combating illegal mining, which has contaminated numerous water sources nationwide, leaving them muddy and brown.
In recent weeks, there have been multiple protests calling for the government’s prompt intervention to address galamsey activities, with more demonstrations expected in the future.
Organised Labour has announced plans to initiate a strike starting October 10, 2024.