The Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sulemana Braimah, warned that illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, has spiralled beyond control and demands a united national response rather than political blame games.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile programme on Saturday, October 31, Braimah said both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) have struggled with the problem, insisting that political parties must acknowledge the involvement of their own members and executives if Ghana is to make meaningful progress.
He noted that President John Dramani Mahama had acknowledged that some NDC members were involved in illegal mining, just as members of the previous NPP administration had also been implicated. “What it takes at this stage is honesty and a sense of patriotism,” he said, urging the governing party to admit the scale of the challenge and that political promises may have underestimated its complexity.
Braimah suggested that such an admission would create room for both parties to set aside partisan differences and work together against illegal mining. “If the NDC will come and tell us that they knew the galamsey problem was too much of a problem and was going to be difficult, but maybe we did politics with it to come to power, the NDC and I believe we will also understand, and the NPP can also acknowledge, so that together we can confront what a common enemy is,” he said.
The comments come amid ongoing government efforts to tackle illegal mining and questions about whether current interventions are producing sustainable results.
