Government’s attempt to rid the country’s forest of illegal miners has been described by Small Scales Miners Association as a sham and propaganda design to throw dust unto the eyes of unsuspecting citizens.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the group Abdul Razak, government consistently ignored their suggestions of how to fight ‘galamseyers’ without necessarily engaging the military, but “every time government called us to a meeting to discuss these things, they turn out to do different thing and keep saying they have consulted us”.
Recently, government backed military operation to fight illegal mining has been in the news for the wrong reasons. Dubbed ‘Operation Halt’, whose primary goal is to stop activities of illegal miners that is fast causing depletion to the country’s forest and polluting water bodies, are seen allegedly burning excavators confiscated from those engaging in galamsey.
But Abdul Razak observed that the approach adopted by government to end galamsey cannot be the right way of confronting the problem and solving it. He said groups such as the one he speaks for, had in the past, met with several government committees and made recommendations.
However, “as soon as we are out of the meeting, government goes to do different thing, then turn round to announce that we have been part of the deliberations. How? Government is just engaging in propaganda by using us. We have been home for many years now and instead of taking what we have been telling them, they won’t”.
All these burning of excavators when we sat down with them, we told them not to use the military but what do we see now, as if that was what we have discussed, he explained.
“We told them that this militarization will not help so we suggested two ways to deal with the problem which one is to task some key people in various galamsey communities, to self-police ourselves. At least we have our taskforce and monitoring team that we want to collaborate with but they won’t listen”.
The PRO also pointed out that, his group suggested a community based approach which will rely on opinion leaders, like chiefs and assembly members, so that if there is galamsey activities in their communities, they will be held responsible, “but this one too fell in deaf ears”.
“These are measures that can be long term but they will do the ‘showcase thing’ so the whole world will see that they are fighting galamsey and since those government officials who are behind know if our suggestions are implemented thy will not get their money, they won’t listen to us” Abdul Razak alleged.
