A member of the Lands and Forestry Committee in Parliament has blamed President Akufo-Addo's failure to clamp down on illegal small-scale mining on the absence of a clear and decisive strategy.

According to Alhassan Suhuyini, the President's strategy towards fighting galamsey lacked planning and foresight.

“If there was a clear plan and if it was carefully thought through then the President won’t be asking us again to debate on what he had already decided to deal with and even put his presidency on the line if he failed.

“Clearly, that is an admission that the thinking that went into it could have been better. Now the question is, what has the President done to those people who we all know and agree may have internally sabotaged this fight,” he asked Evans Mensah on JoyNews’ PM Express.  

President Akufo-Addo in his presentation of his final State of the Nation address to the 7th parliament called for an honest conversation on galamsey devoid of politicization.

This call has, however, triggered interesting conversations amongst civil society organizations and political opponents.

According to the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, President Akufo-Addo was victimized for his fight against galamsey during his first term to the point of losing votes and even seats in Parliament.

Meanwhile, Centre for Democratic Development’s (CDD), Kojo Asante Pumpuni admitted that the call for dialogue on the matter by the President is worth noting.

“I think the President is right that we [Ghanaians] need to have an honest conversation about it. But I think the topic is not whether to allow galamsey or not to allow it. But it should be geared towards, permitting small scale mining juxtaposed against illegal mining,” he said.

Contributing to the discussion, the president of the policy think-tank IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe suggested that government first pay attention to the processes of acquiring mining licenses as a starting point in the fight against the menace.