A lecturer at the University of Ghana‘s School of Business, Dr. Kobby Mensah, has lamented President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s statement linking the fight against illegal small-scale mining, galamsey, and winning the 2024 elections.
He is concerned that more pressing socio-economic, environmental and generational considerations have failed to make the list of why the fight against the scourge must be won.
In a tweet posted on October 5, 2022; hours after Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had met with the National House of Chiefs and selected Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs), Dr. Mensah wondered why the fixation on elections.
“So NPP will only fight Galamsay becos [because] will make them win elections Ei! Where are the values – securing the future of generations unborn? Sustaining the earth’s resources? Protecting the livelihoods – human and animals etc. None of these important to president but elections,” his post read.
President Akufo-Addo in his address admonished MMDCEs, in particular, to put in their best effort to ensure that the government wins the fight against galamsey.
The president stressed that they had to put in their best effort because winning the war against ‘galamsey’ will ensure that the New Patriotic Party, NPP, wins power for an unprecedented third successive term under the Fourth Republic.
“Let us work together to get rid of this one. And I believe that if the people of Ghana see a determined effort on our part which is yielding results. Our water bodies are clearing, our landscape is being reclaimed, our forest zones are being preserved, it will help them enable us to do what? Break the Eight,” the president told the MMDCEs.
During the first part of the meeting, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo refuted suggestions that his government is not committed to the fight against galamsey.
According to Akufo-Addo, his government has been committed to the fight against the menace since his first day in office and its determination to curb it even cost the NPP some votes in the 2020 General Elections.
The president intimated that the votes he and his party lost showed that he really put his presidency on the line to fight galamsey.
“Since I took office on January 7th, 2017, nearly six years ago, I have made it a central feature of my presidency to lead in the fight to rid our country of this menace, which we all now call galamsey.
“Indeed, it was an important aspect of my inaugural address that day. It has not been easy; it has not been popular and we have not gotten the immediate results that I was looking for.
“Indeed, in the last election of 2020, my stance on the issue cost my party and I significant losses in the mining communities. It turned out that my statement that I was putting my presidency on the line in the fight against galamsey was neither bumbazed nor reckless. It was the simple truth,” he said.