A well-known evangelist, Rev. Dr. Lawrence Tetteh, has called Ghana’s battle against unlawful small-scale mining, better known as galamsey, a joke given how pretentiously everyone has been handling it.
He asserted that the persons involved in the trade are not hiding anything, and that the rules of the nation are freely flouted by them.
In a brief excerpt from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation‘s Breakfast Show, Rev. Dr. Lawrence Tetteh spoke about how he had seen firsthand the extent of the environmental harm that galamsey has inflicted.
“I have had the chance to go to Tarkwa, with my team as a form of excursion and curiosity, got to see galamsey sites. We advanced to see some in Obuasi and I think it’s a joke if we make talks that we’re fighting galamsey,” he said.
The revered Man of God went on to say that although national authorities are aware of the origins of galamsey and the reasons it has grown to be such an empowered sector, they are choosing not to address it directly.
“Everybody knows where galamsey is. Everybody knows the perpetrators… how does the equipment get to Ghana? The equipment don’t fly straight from China. The equipment don’t fly straight from Japan. The equipment don’t come straight from other parts straight; it goes through our ports of entry. Who monitors them?
“I think that it’s about time as a nation, we walk the talk and stop limiting ourselves to very trivial things. Galamsey is destroying our water bodies, it has destroyed our nation,” he added.
The Akufo-Addo government has been on a relentless campaign to completely stop galamsey in the country but it has continuously been met with many challenges.