Awulae Angama Tuagyan II
The Paramount Chief of Gwira Traditional Area, Awulae Angama Tuagyan II, is suggesting to the government and the traditional leaders to involve the gods to decisively deal with illegal mining otherwise called Galamsey in the country.
According to him, his proposal will pitch illegal miners polluting water bodies against powerful deities in their respective communities.
Awulae Angama Tuagyan was addressing the sub-chiefs, elders and the people at the inauguration of Gwira Traditional Council at Bamiankor in the Nzema East municipality of the Western region.
He reminded the elders, sub-chiefs and the people about the consequences of the high level of pollution being witnessed in some of the communities in the Gwira enclave and warned that something urgent must be done to regain the quality of the water resources meant for consumption and other domestic usages.
He said, the protection and preservation of the country’s resources is a national duty and should not be left in the hands of the government alone and that all Ghanaians for the desired results to be achieved.
This age-old traditional model, Awulae said, is hitherto being used to settle issues, he underscored, would bring an end to galamsey menace.
Awulae Angama Tuagyan stressed on the need for all Ghanaians to contribute to ending all forms of illegalities in the small-scale mining sector and called for a sustainable mining to bring the needed development and improvement to the mining communities.
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“Illegal mining has been the bane of this country. It’s a canker that collectively we must all fight. It’s a struggle that we must get out of our way. People are finding ways and means to have money at all cost without taking into consideration the future of this country, he maintained.”
“We need to mine the gold, but not at the detriment of the country”, he said.
The issue of ongoing illegal mining activities in the country is not just troubling human survival, but devastating to the environment according to environmentalists.
The practice promotes deforestation, land degradation, and water pollution.
Most major water pollution in the country currently are caused by illegal mining activities.
The practice is adversely impacting agricultural productivity and other economic activities dependent on natural resources.
In the Gwira Traditional Area in Western Region, the canker has taken over all communities endowed with mineral resources.
Most unemployed youth in the mining areas turn to depend heavily on these galamsey activities to survive, therefore making the fight against the canker, an egg, and chicken debate.
Nonetheless, stakeholders in the area are unhappy with the negative impact of these activities, especially in water resource areas.
Despite many assurances from authorities in government, outside government, civil society, religious leaders, traditional rulers, the battle against the illegal mining activities in the country appears daunting if not impossible to win, considering the social and economic challenges confronting mining communities.
Source: Ghananest.com/Matthew O. A. Dadzie
