By Benjamin Nii Nai Anyetei
Lawyer and Political Strategist, Kwame Owusu Danso, Esq. has called for a shift in Ghana’s approach to tackling illegal mining, or galamsey, insisting that law enforcement should target the financiers and powerful backers behind the operations rather than the poor local labourers seen at the mining sites.
Speaking on GBC’s “Current Agenda” programme, Mr Owusu Danso said that most of those caught working in forest reserves and along polluted river bodies are only the “visible faces” of a much deeper and well-financed network.
“The people mining in the forest reserves and water bodies are not the financiers,” he said. “If you arrest them, you are dealing with the wrong people. We should be going after the people who are funding these activities.”
He explained that the real beneficiaries of illegal mining are often chiefs, politicians, businesspeople, and investors who supply the capital and equipment that make such environmentally destructive activities possible.
“It has become very systematic,” he added.
“A person who lives in a village cannot afford to buy an excavator to mine illegally. Obviously, someone is financing that person. These are the people we must hold accountable.”
