Senyo Hosi of the One Ghana Movement and the Media Coalition Against Galamsey says Ghana is losing hope in the fight against illegal mining.

Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on September 23, he said leadership has failed to act decisively. “If this president will not do it, then we are, we are hopeless.”

He said the country had once looked to the previous administration for results.

“Because, first of all, I actually thought that former President Akufo-Addo should have been the one man to have fixed this problem, because he wasn’t standing for election anymore. He should have left with his name high, but he didn’t.”

The call for urgent action follows a warning issued by the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference on September 18. In a pastoral message, the bishops asked President John Mahama to declare a state of emergency in galamsey areas.

They said the menace “ravages our rivers and forests, poisons our soil, endangers public health, corrupts governance, erodes our moral fibre, and extinguishes livelihoods.”

They stressed that it “is not a routine challenge to be managed with half-measures; it is a national emergency requiring decisive, extraordinary response.”

Read also: Gov’t not taking galamsey fight seriously – Cadman Mills

Mr Hosi insisted that President Mahama must not ignore the crisis.

“This President is a one-term president, if for nothing at all. One of your closest people died. Dr Omane Boamah is not a friend to the president; it’s his brother, one of his closest confidants.

"Mister President, if you can look at those children, Yaw, his wife and all of them and still be superintending this thing, then you’re your own honestly.”

He questioned the lack of honour in the fight against galamsey.

“We must be men with some little honour, even among thieves; there is honour, what is this? We lie!”

He also pointed to water quality data exposed by Joy News.

“What is the turbidity that Joy News found, Kwanyarko? It is at 94,800 NTU now, when last year we were told that it was 14,000, and all of us got up. In that same facility, the same central region, in a different plant, it was 14,000...our politicians are damn liars.”