A former General Secretary of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), Julius Kwame Anthony, says the reality of the fight against galamsey has being lost.
According to him, the constant rhetoric and gimmicks being associated to the galamsey fight will do Ghana no good.
With the ruling government’s pledge to fight galamsey, they set up taskforces to eradicate the menace and went as far as descending into the pit to arrest galamseyers and burn excavators. However, these actions have achieved minimal results as galamsey pits are regularly being filled with more and more people.
The student activist described this development as the biggest scam of the government, claiming galamsey and its related activities are headed by politicians and other influential people in society.
Recently, some members of the clergy visited galamsey pits to pray for God’s intervention in ending the menace, an act critiqued by many and supported by few.
Reacting to this development in a special e.tv Ghana production; Ghana’s Campus Dialogue, themed; ‘Ghana’s Fight Against Illegal Small Scale Mining’, he told host Sefah-Danquah, “This is what we need to do to stop galamsey. When the President is telling lies we need to tell him respectfully to be truthful. The Pastors in this country are the worst embarrassment to us. How can prayer stop galamsey? They simply need to tell the government the truth. We need to tell them the truth and they should have gone to the President to do the right thing, instead of saying the fight against galamsey can be won with prayer.”
The Chairman for the Church of Pentecost, Ghana, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, has called for a political will and multi-faceted solutions to end mining activities that are devastating arable lands, farms and river bodies.
He spoke to the media after a tour of some mining sites in the Eastern Region by the Christian Ecumenical Bodies in the country.
The tour by the clergy was to observe and have first-hand information on the level of devastation as a result of mining activities.
They sung patriotic songs and prayed at one of the mining sites to ask for God’s forgiveness on behalf of perpetrators destroying the country’s land and river bodies through mining.
Notable among the clergy who visited the sites were the immediate past Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana, Bishop Dr. Paul Boafo, Presiding Chairman of the Assemblies of God, Rev Dr. Paul Frimpong Manso and Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Ghana Apostle Eric Nyamekye.
By; Joel Sanco
