The government must take a bold step to deal with illegal miners to help preserve the environment, the General Secretary of the Church of Pentecost (COP), Apostle Samuel Gyau Obuobi, has said.
According to a Daily Graphic report on Monday, this week, while calling on all stakeholders to support this year’s Green Ghana Day (GGD) tree planting exercise, Apostle Obuobi stressed that it was crucial for people in positions of authority to strictly enforce the law to stop illegal miners from destroying the environment.
“I want to call on those in positions of responsibility to implement decisive and bold measures to stop the illegality. Whoever is involved in it should be dealt with according to the laws of the land once they are caught; if we do not do that we will go nowhere.
“Our river bodies are getting destroyed here and there, and things are getting worse every day; you advise people and they do not take it, so we must apply the law,” the Graphic report quoted him as saying.
Apostle Obuobi further stressed that “our leaders must be bold and ensure that whoever is caught destroying the environment through galamsey is severely dealt with, no matter their political colours or connections.”
The Chronicle congratulates Apostle Obuobi for adding his voice to the numerous calls on the government to deal with the galamsey issue that is threatening the survival of this country. As he has admitted, illegal mining is destroying our forests and water bodies. It is important to note that without water and forests, no human being can survive on planet Earth.
Unfortunately, because those financing the operations of these illegal miners are staying in big towns and cities, such as in Accra, Takoradi and Kumasi, where they even flush their toilets with treated water, they do not appreciate the future impact of their illegal activities on Ghanaians.
Regrettably, all actions taken by the government to fight the menace have not yielded the desired results.
So many taskforces had previously been set up to fight the illegal miners, but in the end, the problem still persists. In the desert countries, they treat the sea water for both human consumption and domestic chores because they do not have rivers. Fortunately for us, we have these rivers in abundance and instead of being grateful to God we are rather destroying them for pecuniary gains.
Since all government efforts appear to have failed, it is time other forces also join the fight to defeat the canker.
The Chronicle, therefore, suggests to the religious groups, of which the Church of Pentecost is one of them, to come on-board. Since Ghana is a very religious country, we are convinced that about 80% of these illegal miners attend one form of denomination or the other.
The religious leaders, like Apostle Obuobi, must use their pulpits to appeal to the conscience of those indulged in the crime to stop. We believe that if the religious leaders keep on preaching against the practice, the chunk of these illegal miners will regain their ‘consciousness’ and stop the destruction they are causing to the environment.
Illegal mining, or galamsey, as it is popularly called, has been with us for decades but the destruction we are seeing now is unprecedented in the history of this country. We must, therefore, fight and defeat it for the sake of posterity.
