The Convener of the Media Coalition Against Galamsey, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, says civil society will seize the opportunity of President John Mahama’s meeting with CSOs to push for lasting solutions to the galamsey menace.

Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on October 1, the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Mines revealed that the coalition had long awaited such an invitation.

“We have been waiting for this invitation, because the coalition had written to His Excellency, the President, and he had directed that we meet with the Lands Minister in the first instance, and he was going to meet us. And we know that the Minister had reported back to him, so we’re expecting that.”

The meeting, scheduled for Friday, October 3, at the Jubilee House, is expected to gather over 50 participants, including leading civil society groups and government officials.

Dr Ashigbey admitted the size of the gathering came as a surprise.

“The only surprise we got was the fact that over 50 or so people have been invited, you know, and so it was going to really be a very large gathering.

"And so again, the agenda is not being in the format of the meeting has not been clearly spelt out, but we will take advantage of every opportunity that is given to us to resolve this.”

He stressed that the coalition would not use the platform to repeat well-known challenges.

“Even we are not going into this meeting to go and articulate the problems. We know very clearly what the problems are, and we know His Excellency knows what the problems are.”

Instead, Dr Ashigbey said the focus would be on demanding clarity from the President on what success against galamsey would look like under his leadership.

“Like we said in our last press release that we gave, we are going to go into this meeting asking His Excellency, the President, what his definition of success is, what he would classify as having successfully executed this particular thing."