Senior Vice President of IMANI Africa Kofi Bentil has accused government of paying lip service to the fight against galamsey.

He said government has merely approved the fight against illegal mining instead of taking action to end it.

“It is not possible to convince me that the Ghana army with all its resources cannot dislodge miners in the land space of Ghana and young people.

“They can do it if they want to so if they’re not doing it then something else is the matter,” he told Samson Lardy Anyenini on Joy News’ Newsfile show on Saturday.

Mr Bentil suspects foul play in the execution of duties of authorities in charge of checking galamsey and believes that leaders in the country have a hand in the growth of galamsey in the country.

He accused major stakeholders in government of being front line accomplices in promoting galamsey.

President Akufo-Addo has said he do anything including putting his presidency on the line to stop galamsey. He went ahead to set up Operation Vanguard, a joint task force of police and military to go into mining areas to stop galamsey.  But the IMANI Africa Veep says all that is window dressing.

“With all the things that are going on there, you can always have a lot of action. If you choose to we can check where there is galamsey. You can send people dropping from helicopters,” he said.

Mr Bentil said the fight against galamsey is a lost battle because fore liners in the fight are major stakeholders promoting it.

“You take out licenses, you form committees, you put the army there yet the problem is still there and this is not a problem that human beings cannot solve.

He said the major task force responsible for checking galamsey in the country Operation Vanguard “is under orders” of which some members of the taskforce are protecting the illegal miners.

“There is only one solution for galamsey: that is, make a simple rule that wherever illegal mining is found, sack the D.C.E. This will not be done it will not be done because too many of our leaders are involved in galamsey. Too many of our politicians are funded from galamsey money,” he said.

He, however, suggested that government should be stringent with enforcing measures laid down to check galamsey in the country.

This he believes is the only way to drastically deal with the problem.

On his part, the President of the Concerned Small Scale Miners Association says its members have lost faith in efforts by government to stop the activities of illegal miners in the country.

Michael Kwadwo Peprah explained that this follows the abandonment of the Multilateral Mining Integrated project, a document prepared by Peter Amewu when he was Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, in conjunction with other stakeholders.