The Youth Wing of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described government's approach to fighting illegal mining as "thoughtless and lacking innovation".

According to a press release by the group, they have "noted with bewilderment, reports of comments made by President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo in a speech tacitly endorsing the destruction of seized excavators involved in illegal mining popularly known as galamsey".

"We find this development worrying and an affront to reasonable expectations, that in 2021, the only solution available to tackle galamsey is the burning of excavators. Excavators do not have a mind of their own, they are operated by humans, when you deal with the human factor, you deal with the problem".

It is their opinion that the "lame" approach in dealing with the issue at hand lacks the "determination and resolve to hold off galamsey operators in the long term".

They also accused the president of using "the destruction of mining machinery to deflate the issue of the missing excavators and the role his close aficionados played in the whole matter", and asked that he starts "his so-called hard combat from his own 'house'."

In addition, they stated that the president's speech endorses the "lawless behaviour without recourse to the laws of our land. The law does not say brun them, so for a lawyer who happens to be President to ask that excavators are burnt is unbelievable, and rightly so because he knows the courts will not go contrary to his claims."

This, they say, "is dangerous for our democracy if our president can blatantly disregard our laws and prescribe his own form of punishment".

They are, therefore, urging government to find a "reasonable use for the excavators" rather than burning them, as the "machines can be put to good use like reclaiming, construction of roads and buildings."