A small-scale illegal miner shocked the audience on the Ultimate Breakfast Show when he told host Julius Caesar Anadem that he bought 7 Mercedes Benz Sprinter buses from a week’s proceeds from galamsey.
“In 2014, one Sprinter Bus cost GHc80, 000 but I bought seven after working for just a week in a galamsey concession. Tell me which kind of job can give you this amount of money. Which kind of job?” he asked Caesar.
The miner who requested to remain anonymous disclosed that his workers could have even made more but for the fear of getting arrested by the security services.
“This was just a quick work we were doing. So imagine the politician who has all the protection to go in there to mine,” he retorted.
The galamseyer pointed out that perpetrators of this ongoing illegal business which has polluted Ghana’s rivers and forest cover, cuts across politicians, wealthy businessmen, religious leaders and all classes of persons least suspected of engaging in such crimes.
He disclosed that chiefs who were supposed to be stewards of their traditional areas not only sold the lands but also restrained miners who were willing to reclaim lands.
“We often blame the Chinese who came in with the Excavator for destroying the lands and leaving in their trail huge pits. But the chiefs will never allow you to cover the pits and reclaim the land.”
When you have left, they will allow other people to go back into the pits to mine more gold. They want to keep benefitting from the pits even when we have left”, the miner divulged.
When asked whether the fight against illegal mining would yield any results, he contended that “miners will continue to mine until the world draws to an end”.
Government has come under intense pressure to deploy forces to halt illegal small scale miners whose operations have affected 34 of the country’s 288 forest reserves and left river bodies churning with turbidity levels hovering well above 14,000 MTUs.
The arrest of 54 Democracy Hub Protestors who were remanded into police and prison custody for two weeks after demonstrating against the menace has sparked yet another three day protest for government to halt illegal mining and release the young protestors.
Organized labour I threatening to embark on a nationwide strike action that could shut down the entire country if government fails to grant demands for a state of emergency to be declared on all river bodies and forest reserves in the country.
Ghana’s biggest labour front is demanding that the president Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo – Addo releases the security forces to flush out the illegal miners and repeal L.I. 2462 which permits the granting of licenses for mining in forest reserves
They are also demanding that leaders of political parties especially the National Democratic Congress and the governing New Patriotic Party sign a document to demonstrate their commitment to the fight which poses an existential threat to the country and its generations unborn.
The Ghana Health Service has warned of an increase in the cases of damage to organs, the nervous system and the occurrence of birth-related disorders due to chemicals like mercury and cyanide used in the extraction of gold and how such chemicals are seeping into water and food sources.
Source: Ghana/Starrf.com.gh/103.5FM/Ivan Heathcote – Fumador
