The Coordinator for Eco-Conscious Citizens, Awula Serwah says Ghana lacks the political will to fight illegal mining.

She says illegal miners have encroached upon the country's lands, consistently mining in untouched rivers, and ultimately polluting them.

In an interview with Joy News’ The Pulse on May 10, she questioned if “Ghana cannot have a robust fight on illegal miners?"

"Do you think we don’t have the capability, or it is that the political will is not there?

“As I speak right now a petition has been signed to stop mining on the raw river in Nzema, one of the few rivers that have not been polluted.

“If there is a political will we can fight illegal mining unless you are telling me that the illegal miners are so well equipped they have more capabilities than even our regular miners that we cannot do anything about it. I’m not convinced,” she added.

“I think COCOBOD executives have spoken, that these illegal miners are hurting us. The water company has spoken, the doctors have spoken about the health, the maternal death, the deformed babes being born. We know about our water poisoning our health, we know about the rise in kidney and labor diseases, what else are we waiting for before we take this matter seriously? 

“We need to have a pause on illegal mining,” she emphasised.

Awula Serwah stressed that mining is an expensive business.

“I think that we can talk and talk, but until the political will is there to solve the problems we will just be going around in circle.”