The Minority caucus in Parliament has renewed calls on the presidency to intensify efforts against illegal mining in Ghana which continues to wreck havoc on the environment and affecting livelihood due to its devastating effect on farm lands and water bodies in severely affected areas across the country. The death of eight Ghanaians en route to an event in the Ashanti region where an alternative livelihood scheme for illegal miners was being launched was a wake up call to deploy a full-scale military action on illegal mining. According to Patricia Appiagyei, the Deputy Minority Leader, the seeming subdued fight against illegal mining by the government is not only a mere policy failure, it is a betrayal of public trust.

She said, “This tragic incident should have strengthened national resolve to defend our land, our water, our children’s inheritance. Instead, Ghanaians watch a Government that speaks against galamsey in press conferences while allowing questionable incentives, weak enforcement, and compromised supply chains to persist.”

Madam Appiagyei was speaking at a press conference organised by the caucus Thursday on the first anniversary of President John Mahama’s return to office. She raised doubts on the much touted achievements of the administration as a “manufactured miracle” questioning how the purported economic gains would benefit the citizenry because behind the 6% GDP growth, declining inflation, and appreciation of the Ghanaian cedi, what are the cost implications to the ordinary Ghanaian? In the face of the respite in the economy, lives are being threatened by water bodies poisoned with mercury and cyanide due to the scourge of illegal mining; cocoa farms are destroyed, forest reserves are vandalised and the alarming state of three major rivers that she said “increasingly reflect national distress and institutional weakness.”

According to her, the first year into the 4-year term of President Mahama’s tenure has not delivered a reset, instead it has delivered a relapse. “A relapse into dangerous economic experiments. A relapse into lawless governance. A relapse into predatory partisanship. A relapse into patterns of deception that Ghanaians have seen before -and rejected before,” she observed

The Deputy minority leader then reiterated calls for a bi-partisan parliamentary inquiry into an alleged $214 million loss in the gold-for-reserves programme where all off-taker contracts are subpoenaed, compel GoldBod and BOG officials to testify under oath, and review all trading data among others. She said her caucus will not relent in demanding accountability until Ghana is set on a truly sustainable, just, and transparent path.