A Former Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, says the State must focus on arresting wealthy and influential individuals, who finance the activities of illegal miners to demonstrate its commitment to fighting the menace.
He said the arrest of workers at illegal mining sites was not the solution to the problem and recommended that “kingpins” who funded illegal mining activities should be apprehended and made to face the law.
In an interview on Class FM on Tuesday, monitored by the Ghana News Agency, Mr Wereko-Brobby said the “fight against galamsey must be fought in a very honest way.”
“We made a lot of noise about Aisha Huang but what happened to her? The laws of this land are clear. Small-scale mining belongs to Ghanaians. So, who are the Ghanaians, who get the licenses and invite the Chinese to front for them?
“If we are really serious about fighting galamsey, then we really ought to go hard against the local kingpins who are fronting and financing (the illegality),” Mr Wereko-Brobby said.
He said the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) was not charged with the mandate to fight illegal mining. but investigating corruption related issues that had been brought to its attention with respect to the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining.
“The OSP is not charged with fighting galamsey but to fight corruption,” Mr Wereko-Brobby said and added that “we must unearth all those who are financing and fronting for foreigners.”
Mr Wereko-Brobby said one of the main challenges affecting the ability of politicians to tackle such illegalities head-on was the nature of the country’s political financing structure.
“The political system is set up in such a way that people who want power will have to invest a lot of money and a lot of the time they do not have the money and patrons sponsor their political ambition and when they win power the first thing they want to do is to satisfy those who helped them to get power,” he said.
Mr Wereko-Brobby rallied the youth to rise against any form of oppression and demand accountability from authorities to safeguard their future.
GNA