Former Majority Leader of Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, says Ghana must adopt a clear national policy to tackle illegal mining, widely known as galamsey, but admits that the approach used by the previous government in fighting galamsey “was not the best.”

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Joy News on the AM Show, he said, “The galamsey fight from a principal position was a very good thing. But the method employed in the fight, was it the best?”

He explained that at the time, illegal mining activities were being carried out largely by Ghanaians, many of whom were supporters of both major political parties.

“Galamsey activities at the time were being engaged in by Ghanaians. Most of them are NPP and NDC. So NPP people were involved, NDC people were involved,” he said.

According to him, the decision to seize and burn excavators at mining sites created resentment in affected communities.

“You went for their excavators, and you burnt them on site. The people will be angry with you,” he stated.

While he maintained that Ghana must take a firm stand against illegal mining, he said the need for a clear and well-structured national policy.

“As a country, we should have a policy to stop galamsey. What we did, the method that we employed, I would say, was not the best,” he said.

He added that the strategy had electoral consequences, particularly in mining areas.

“It affected our performance in the constituencies in the mining communities. Today, we have just two constituencies, both East and West, that we are still holding. We have lost all the mining constituencies,” he said.

On the debate over Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s role in the party’s electoral defeat, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said it was understandable that some would hold him responsible as leader.

“If we had won, it would have been attributed to him that under his leadership we won. So if we fail and people accuse that under his leadership we have lost, I will agree,” he said.

However, he rejected attempts to blame the loss on Dr Bawumia’s ethnicity, religion or issues related to Bawku.

“To put everything around his neck, especially these things relating to his ethnicity, his religion and Bawku, those things are not factual,” he said.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu also revealed that internal inquiries conducted in the Ashanti Region after the elections identified four main causes of the party’s defeat.

The first, he said, was external shocks that hit the country, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.

“The immediacy of it and its effect on the economy” created serious challenges, he noted.

The second factor was issues relating to governance. The third was the party’s internal affairs, and the fourth concerned the conduct of the election campaign, including the distribution of resources.

“These four main things led to some anger within the electorate,” he said.

He pointed in particular to the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), introduced as part of efforts to stabilise the economy during the crisis.

“Government, at one time, resorted to this Domestic Debt Exchange Programme. Do you know how many people were affected? Over 800,000 people were affected,” he said.

“Now, the 840,000 people who were domestic bondholders, assuming each person had one dependent, the number was almost the 1.7 million that we lost by. They were angry,” he said.