General News of Sunday, 2 May 2021Source: www.ghanaweb.com‘Galamsey' is a local term used in Ghana for illegal or unregulated gold mining operations. But according to the Deputy Youth Organizer of the National Democratic Congress, Edem Agbana, those seized excavators were taken from the original owners and shared like ‘kelewele’ among the NPP Party executives. Citing some NPP members, Edem Agbana claimed that rather than fight the menace plaguing the country, the governing party was robbing Peter to pay Paul by handing over the seized equipment to party members. “Instead of fighting the problem of small-scale mining, President Akufo-Addo and his government were only interested in replacing the indigenes and the illegal small-scale miners with party apparatchiks”. According to Isaac Karikari, a director at the lands and natural resources ministry, the recovering lands and waterbodies destroyed by galamsey would cost the country an estimated US$2.3 billion in 2016.

Source: GhanaWeb May 02, 2021 11:48 UTC