Hot SourceCivil society group FixTheCountry Movement is pressing government to take what it calls “urgent and decisive action” against Ghana’s deepening illegal mining crisis, urging the repeal of Legislative Instrument (LI) 2462 and the declaration of a state of emergency.
Speaking on Channel One Newsroom on Monday, 22 September, movement member Edward Tuttor warned that the fight against galamsey can no longer be treated as routine.
“Galamsey needs to be tackled head-on. We don’t need to massage the issues. We don’t need to pretend as if we don’t know what is going on,” he said.
Tuttor welcomed President John Dramani Mahama’s recent acknowledgement of the scale of the problem, referencing the President’s 15 July thank-you tour in the Western North Region, where Mahama described galamsey as a national emergency.
“I was happy when the president admitted publicly that galamsey is now a national emergency,” Tuttor noted, adding that the admission must translate into swift action.
He argued that if the situation is indeed a national emergency, the logical next step is for the President to officially declare a state of emergency and to scrap LI 2462, which governs small-scale mining licensing.
According to Tuttor, the legislative framework as it stands “hampers effective regulation of small-scale mining and complicates efforts to curb galamsey.”
FixTheCountry maintains that repealing LI 2462 would remove legal loopholes that allow illegal mining to flourish and give government the tools to restore degraded lands and protect water bodies.
The call piles fresh pressure on the administration as communities across the country grapple with the environmental and economic damage caused by uncontrolled mining.
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