The Fourth Estate, on June 20, 2022, published that out of 220 people jailed for illegal mining offences in Ghana, only two were Chinese nationals. Meanwhile, between 2017 and 2021, Chinese nationals arrested in connection with illegal mining, which is notoriously known in Ghanaian parlance as galamsey, were in their hundreds.
It is, however, not surprising that we keep seeing more Chinese and other nationals trooping into the country to destroy our environments.
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), private individuals and the media have expressed surprise over this development, since more than 19,000 hectares of cocoa farms had either been destroyed or affected by ‘galamsey’.
While some nationals of the People Republic of China (PPC), which established diplomatic ties with the former Gold Coast on July 5, 1960, are visiting mayhem upon their receiving country economic backbone, the Asian Tiger was reported to have made a big wave into cocoa production in 2020.
Although the Chief Executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Joseph Boahen Aidoo, in May 2021, under-rated the development, The Chronicle still cannot get over the matter.
This paper is stating emphatically that it is not bothered by the China joining the cocoa producing League of Nations it is hurt by how the communist state’s nationals are destroying the environments of their host nation’s without any regard for laws, customs and norms.
Nonetheless, we are told that the latter day saint in cocoa production stepped into the game with full force using modern technology for harvesting, breaking the pods, and drying the cocoa beans.
Ghana, which has depended on cocoa since the 19th Century, continues to use basic farming tools such as hoes and cutlass, making the competition uneven.
Interestingly, between 1911 and 1976, Ghana was touted the leading producer of cocoa, producing 30% to 40% of the world total output, thanks to our fallen hero, Tetteh Quarshie, who returned from the Island of Fernando Po to Ghana with cocoa beans.
However, this enviable position had been downgraded to second place, with neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire claiming the top spot.
Sadly, over one million livelihoods depending on cocoa production in regions – Western, Eastern, and Central – are the most affected by galamsey.
The Chronicle is sadden by the fact that the cocoa industry was able to rake in foreign exchange of over US$3.2 billion in 2018, and it is the only commodity of Ghana trading on the international market that it purchases through a syndicated loan is being watched to collapse.
We are not naive about how much Ghana earns from its mineral deposits, particularly gold, and the contribution to the economy, but concerned about how illegal mining activities are killing the goose laying the golden eggs.
Our hardworking and gallant cocoa farmers have a popular saying: “Cocoa is Ghana and Ghana is cocoa,” meaning, Cocoa and Ghana cannot be decoupled.
The paper wants to remind our respectable chiefs and heads of families that the land they exercise authority over was acquired through the blood and toils of their forebears to keep in trust of the dead, the living, and generation yet unborn.
It is, therefore, this paper’s clarion call that if the chiefs watch on and our water bodies are destroyed, lands polluted, and the gods inhabiting them depart, what account would they give to their ancestors when they visit home.
While we further call on our government to handle the illegal mining issues with all seriousness, the citizens must also endeavour to resist any impending activity subject to causing destruction of the environment. We must act as citizens and not spectators.
