Presidential candidate of the Liberal Party Ghana (LPG), Kofi Percival Akpalu, has voiced his opposition to declaring illegal mining, commonly known as ‘galamsey’, a state of emergency.
His perspective contrasts sharply with the growing calls for stricter governmental actions to combat the rampant and destructive practice in several parts of the country.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews, he explained that, “The problem is big but the solution to this problem is small. If you do proper thinking, you’ll realize that you’ll only push them away and even after that they will go back to the sites to mine”.
Rather than chase them away, he noted that they should be empowered, united and registered to form a large scale mining company owned by them.
“Assuming they are 1million galamseyers and they all come together to contribute their capital, let them pick their own directors and whatever money they make, they share the profit and returns” he said.
He believes this is the only way to solve the problem instead of getting rid of the illegal mining activities.
“Once they are registered and are a legal company, they will follow rules and regulations set for them. This way they can even be helped to go into deep mining rather than the surface mining they’re doing which destroys our environment” he explained.
According to him, these miners are needed and Ghana cannot do without them.
“Truth of the matter is, we need them we can’t do without them. Punishment is not always the solution and the damage has already been done so we need to make sure we sustain what we have left and the best way is for them to be registered just like Anglo-gold and the others are doing so they don’t destroy our water bodies and forest areas” he emphasized.
