The President of the Ghana Association of Banks, John Awuah, has launched a scathing critique of Ghana’s response to illegal mining, also known as galamsey.
He warns that galamsey has become an existential threat, while key national actors remain distracted.
In a strongly worded article, Mr Awuah said the country is losing the fight because civil society has failed to apply sustained, credible pressure, even as communities face worsening environmental destruction and health risks.
“I do not believe that we have a credible CSO community in Ghana,” he stated, accusing some civil society organisations of shifting their energy to issues he believes are less urgent.
“They have time to comment and make a case on the KIA name change at a time that we are all confronted with the existential threat of GALAMSEY,” he said.
Mr Awuah rejected claims that civil society has already done enough advocacy on the issue, insisting the public pressure has been loud but ineffective.
“I know they will say they have made enough noise on GALAMSEY. Nope! It’s been empty noise full of political patronage,” he wrote.
He argued that effective civil society activism must deliver results and not merely create publicity.
“An active CSO intervention achieves results; not press conferences,” he said, adding that groups must “push and say truth to power” rather than “bow to gimmicks in the name of GALAMSEY fight.”
He questioned the impact of past campaigns and demanded proof of progress.
“Where is the evidence of any success in the fight?” he asked.
In his view, the lack of results exposes a deeper national failure: influential institutions have gone silent as illegal mining expands.
“Where are the Peace Council, National House of Chiefs, National Development Planning Commission, Pastors, Imams and our Independent CSOs?” he demanded.
Mr Awuah singled out journalist Erastus Asare Donkor as a rare voice consistently highlighting the crisis.
“Whenever I listen to Erastus Asare Donkor, who is perhaps the only credible voice left in the GALAMSEY discussions, I cringe,” he wrote, suggesting the revelations should alarm every Ghanaian.
He also criticised national leadership for focusing on gold export figures and revenues while ignoring the damage the extraction is causing.
“How can we be toying with our present and future and our leaders are focused on how much Gold we exported and the revenues that accrued to the country last year?” he asked.
Mr Awuah warned that celebrating revenue while citizens face poisoning and disease is a dangerous national delusion.
“What will increased Gold revenues do if half of the population is threatened with heightened chronic and acute diseases resulting from the extraction of Gold?” he questioned.
He used a stark line to underline his point.
“Will the growth in Dollars raise the DEAD?” he asked.
The banking industry leader called for a relentless national response that matches the scale of the crisis, urging citizens and institutions to intensify pressure on leadership.
“We must put our hands to the plough and raise our voices to the obvious dangers of GALAMSEY without ceasing,” he said.
He also praised The Multimedia Group for what he described as leadership in developmental journalism.
“And here, I commend the Managers of The Multimedia Group for the demonstration of leadership in developmental journalism,” he wrote.
Mr Awuah further accused politicians of responding to galamsey with slogans and multiple task forces that have produced little impact.
“Politicians are good at coining jargons that achieve next to nothing,” he said.
To support his argument, he listed a long line of state interventions over the years, including Operation Vanguard, the Ministerial Ad-Committee on Illegal Mining, the IGP’s Special Anti-Illegal Mining Task Force, Regional Anti-Illegal Mining Taskforce, Blue Water Guards, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, Operation Halt Galamsey, Galamstop Taskforce, NAIMOS, and the Western North Special Taskforce on galamsey.
Mr Awuah said the repeated creation of task forces has become a symbol of waste and failure.
“I’m not sure there has been any national epidemic that has received this level of Complete Non-performance and a waste of the taxpayers’ money as we have done on GALAMSEY,” he stated.
He questioned how a country could build so many structures to fight a single threat and still fail.
“How can we have this number of Task forces to tackle one problem and fail woefully?” he asked.
For Mr Awuah, the answer is simple: the task forces were never designed to win.
“Except to say that they were and continue to be Political creations to send a message of attention to the phenomenon without real intent to achieve any positive outcome,” he concluded.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com