Galamsey has become a major issue for Ghanaians as water bodies, lands and forests are being destroyed. It has become a major concern for almost ev
Galamsey has become a major issue for Ghanaians as water bodies, lands and forests are being destroyed.
It has become a major concern for almost every Ghanaian as the fight against illegal mining is nothing from over.
Sophia Akuffo, the former Chief Justice of Ghana, suggested all mining activities should be stopped to save the environment when she was speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View on Wednesday night.
“Galamsey didn’t become intractable in 2025; it became intractable long ago. And we have been playing games around it, dancing around it, and now it has become a political issue,” she said. “It has grown so many thieves that it is killing and poisoning everybody,” she said.
She continued, “It’s about time Ghanaians woke up and stopped being childish. We cannot continue to pollute our waters and our lands. A gift from God, we have used it to poison ourselves — that is wrong”.
“I believe there should be a moratorium on every form of mining, whether legal or illegal, small-scale or galamsey, until we sort ourselves out. This quest to mine our resources has gone out of hand. Let’s call for a pause,” she concluded.
Ministry of Lands rejects her suggestions
“Her suggestion is coming from a good place, given the fact that she is equally concerned about the devastation of the environment, except that you cannot place a hold on all mining activities as of now. Because mining, as we all know, is a very lucrative economic enterprise that continues to drive our economic advancement,” a media relations officer for Ghana’s Ministry of Lands said in an interview on Citi News.
“The laws that we have now permit mining except that they do not endorse illegal mining, so what we are fighting is not the whole enterprise of mining, but illegal mining activities, and the government will stay on that course,” he added.
Illegal mining is not acceptable per the rules and regulations. The P.R.O. for the Lands Ministry assured Ghanaians of diligent mining but rejected Sophia Akuffo’s plea that mining should be stopped entirely
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