The Convener of the Media Coalition Against Galamsey, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey, says civil society will not allow the fight against illegal mining to repeat past mistakes.

He made the comments on JoyNews’ PM Express on Wednesday, October 1, ahead of a CSOs meeting with President John Mahama at the Jubilee House on Friday.

“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 Chief Executive of the Chamber of Mines explained.

He said the meeting comes at a critical time and presents an opportunity that must not be wasted.

“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… 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.”

Dr. Ashigbey was clear that civil society does not intend to use the platform to rehash old arguments.

“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.”

He revealed that the coalition’s focus will be to seek clarity from the President on concrete outcomes.

“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.”

The meeting on October 3 is expected to gather civil society organisations, government officials and stakeholders to deliberate on lasting solutions to the social and environmental devastation caused by galamsey across the country.