The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Full Gospel Church International in Ghana has urged the government to go after the bigwigs engaging in galamsey.

Speaking on The Probe on JoyNews, Most Rev Samuel Mensah said that the illegal miners on the site, who are mostly arrested, are just a small fraction of the beneficiary chain.

“There are major players behind galamsey. The major players are politicians, traditional leaders, ones behind the scenes, people who own the excavators, those individuals on the ground are not the major players, so we need to go for government and authorities, we must go for the major players,” he stated.

He added that “when they are able to get them arrested, prosecuted and jailed, perhaps we should come up with a law that will confiscate their acquired assets through illegal mining, use those resources to fix the things they have damaged and destroyed.”

Most Rev Samuel Mensah told the host that the fight against galamsey has become a life and death situation and dire actions must be taken to protect the land and waterbodies.

He said that the church will throw its support behind the government to fight the menace; adding that there must be the political will to crack the whip.

“We are living in very serious times. Our nation is going through a very critical situation and we need to do whatever we have to do to really stop this for the sake of today’s children, the next generation and for our own future,” Most Rev Mensah stated.

“It is possible, it is doable and the church will rally behind government, patriotic leaders and citizens so that we can rescue our nation from this disruptive situation we find ourselves in,” he added.