In recent times, there have been calls from sections of the public on the urgent need to ban illegal mining, locally referred to as ‘galamsey’ as the panacea to addressing the water crisis, deforestation, health hazards and the looming insecurity threats in parts of Ghana occasioned by the activities of illegal mining.

What is missing in the calls is the absence of data to support these calls as a suitable alternative to the ban on ‘galamsey’.

On the surface, everyone will appreciate the call at a time when cases or complications in some health centres are directly linked to the dangerous mining activities taking place in some neighbourhoods according to some health practitioners.

We at Laadi Centre for Peace Building and Security Analysis (LACPSA - GHANA) think the contrary. As a security organization, we see these calls as a knee-jerk reaction and do not offer solutions to the ‘galamsey’ problems in the country. Rather, we observed the growing temptation to assume that both legal and illegal mining is called galamsey, therefore the one-size-fits-all approach (ban ‘GALAMSEY’) is not enough to contain the menace.

When we allow this notion to fester, we will create problems by attempting to solve another problem and this will exacerbate the unemployment challenges which in reality, defeats the good intentions of the job creation initiative through the regulated community mining concept. And in the end, we would have excluded the local folks and chiefs at the community levels to the advantage of other mining giants.

There were good reasons for the establishment of the community mining initiative, therefore we must be bold and look at the laws which regulate these illegal activities rather than exerting collective punishment which in our view is not a workable solution. What works better in our opinion is the enforcement and a collective will to solve a national problem and a strong resolution to naming and shaming and not a selective prescription of punishments that pretends to address the challenges.

At the least being misunderstood, it’s worth noting, that LACPSA-GHANA shares a commitment to a PEACEFUL and secure environment and if the activities of unsafe mining are creating havoc in the society and the nation at large, we strongly support actions which will contain these destructive activities but certainly not a ban on ‘GALAMSEY’ because there is no science and data to support the view that a ban will fix the challenges whether in the interim or permanently.

Also, significant to note is the fact that the unregistered and unregulated mining activities have destroyed the forest cover and these have security implications to the country and the world at large. This is because the destroyed forest cover exposes the communities and the world to climatic problems like global warming and shortages in food production etc and these are things which LACPSA-GHANA finds unfriendly and inappropriate.

If any action including the proposed ban on ‘galamsey’ doesn’t seek to include actions that restore the lost forest cover, destroy agricultural potentials and prescribe appropriate alternatives, then that call will be temporal and would have little or no effect.

Otherwise, the proposed ban must come with detailed solutions which are sustainable and can receive the needed receptivity from the local communities rather than a proposed upright ban by the relevant ministry.

History has it that mining started way back or around the 1940s and we have never experienced the kinds of destruction we see today it brings to sharp focus the following questions:

1. What has gone wrong?
2. Is it the case that we have weak enforcement and regulatory bodies yet people continue to keep their jobs and draw salaries for no work done?
3. Are we interested in votes rather than the safety of the environment, the people and generations unborn?
4. Do we acknowledge that some of those entities we label “galamsey” are registered and doing safe mining?
5. Have we identified companies that are engaging in illegal, unsafe mining and careless of the environment and have we done naming and shaming?

LACPSA-GHANA’s situation assessment and evaluation points to the culture of weak enforcement, societal and institutional indiscipline, lawlessness at its peak, wrong targeting of actors at play, and complete complicity by some actors in the mining chain at all levels.

Also, we recommend NOT a ban on ‘galamsey’ due to the likely security challenges and its effect on our national purse, but a real commitment to adopt both vertical and horizontal approaches at all levels in the identification of the real actors behind these destructions.

We are sure in our minds that a committed posture by all stakeholders in the mining values chain will fix these challenges rather than a ban which will not be sustainable.

Finally, community participation in particular is key to fixing the menace and there is no pretence about that because community ownership of the solution or a concept is often phenomenal.

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The Author, Akunkel Musah is an Analyst in Security & Climate Change and a Global Peace Campaigner.