The galamsey scourge: Bringing all the arguments to bear
A lot has been said and continues to be said about the scourge of galamsey (illegal small-scale mining) in the past week.
Advertisement
The sight of water bodies looking viscous and brownish is beyond detestable. No sign of life can be seen in these waters. And to think that these water bodies are the source of our daily sustenance is frightening.
It was therefore not surprising when the Ghana Water Company indicated that galamsey has caused it to cut down water treatment and production by 40 per cent. Adventures have been embarked on in the name of the search for gold and other minerals. Wars have been fought over resources. Lives have been lost over resources.
Galamsey is therefore simply an addition to the long list of evils that we know is associated with the unregulated and unbridled desire to make money at all cost.
Emmanuel Ofosu-Mensah Ababio’s “Historical Overview of the Traditional and Modern Gold Mining in Ghana” argues that galamsey differs significantly from the traditional mining practices that we are used to.
According to him, “whereas traditional miners abandoned their shafts upon hitting the water table, the galamsey miners of today use water pumps to pump the water from their shafts and continue with their activities.”
He also comments on the use of crushers and explosives (dynamite) to blast the hard rocks whereas the traditional miners of old doused the rocks with water to break them.
He doesn’t end there. Relying on a historical approach, he examines the reasons why people embark on galamsey.
His arguments are summed up as follows: (1) Gold mines are attractive especially for those in search of a better life.
Those in these class tend to be the young, unemployed and uneducated who (in recognition of their lack of employable skills) give off all they can to achieve success at the mines; (2) Young people are inspired by the prestige and the good life that persons engaged in mining live; and everyone would want to replicate a success story – if they can.
And don’t forget that status in society carries with it the ability to influence decision-making. This may in a way explain the lack of action and anger in dealing with the menace earlier; and (3) The economic chasm in terms of opportunity between those in the urban areas and those in the rural areas creates a sense of injustice.
Thus people turn to the practice of galamsey. After all, they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do to survive.
Government economic policies cannot also be completely left out of this scourge that has changed both the landscape and aerial view of our mining communities.
“Following the government’s implementation of Economic Reform (Structural Adjustment) Programme in the late 1980s”, Ababio notes, “State-owned gold mining companies were sold out to private companies.”
There were therefore downsizing and retrenchments. This meant that lots of people who have acquired the skill and ability to mine were on “the loose.” They therefore shifted into doing the natural thing – engaging in galamsey.
Then don’t forget the bit about land tenure and ownership system in some mining communities. Inhabitants of Obuasi, Prestea and Bogoso have long accused the mining company of owning their productive lands; and as a result, they have little opportunity to engage in any other activity other than galamsey.
This tension between inhabitants of mining communities and the mining companies came to a head recently. Late last year, the mining concessions of Anglogold Ashanti were invaded by some galamsey miners, which for a long while meant that no economic activity could take place on the Obuasi concession.
There were loss of lives on the side of the mining giant (which lost an official) and the galamsey miners (some of whom were trapped in the mines). After several calls on government to do something about the situation, the mining companies had to cede some of their concessions.
So whiles we are all outraged at the problem, we must understand that our outrage and the images of the unimaginable harm that the environment has suffered cannot and will not by itself resolve the problem.
It is commendable that we are all talking about this. But we must remember that in order to deal with this issue once and for all, we must tackle the root causes.
This would mean being tough on law enforcement. But it would also mean undertaking more sensitisation on the evils of galamsey but more crucially finding an effective way of answering the economic question – what will the miners eat if they stopped engaging in this evil practice?
If we can comfortably answer that question and implement its response, we may be on our way to resolving this issue once and for all.