Ranking Member of the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament, Dr Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo says the 2024 Budget failed to outline measures to deal with the illegal mining menace.

According to him, although he knew the canker had eaten deep into the country’s resources, JoyNews' latest hotline documentary Poisoned for Gold by 2022 GJA Journalist of the year, Erastus Asare Donkor elaborated on the extent of the damage.

Contributing to a debate on the floor of parliament on Thursday, he said “Mr Speaker today, land is a sad story if you watch Erastus Asare Donkor's projections, his analysis on the land, and his report on the land on JoyNews, Mr Speaker, you will weep for Ghana. The rivers all going, the lands are destroyed, even reserved areas which the president had marked as no-go areas, red lines, they are mining in those areas.”

In his contribution, the Wa Central MP insisted that with the damage caused to the environment, the government's allocation of GH₵2.9 million for Operation Vanguard (Anti-Galamsey Operations) would not suffice.

Read also: Illegal Mining: GWCL’s inability to filter heavy metals from drinking water is of grave concern – Engineer

In the documentary, a researcher at the Material Engineering Department of the College of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Bennetta Koomson raised concerns about the Ghana Water Company Limited's (GWCL) inability to completely eradicate heavy metals from the water it supplies for household consumption

According to Engineer Dr Bennetta Koomson, the ingestion of water containing heavy metals poses potential health risks to individuals who consume it, however, these substances are not completely removed from the water during treatment.