Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has laid out his detailed plan to address illegal mining, popularly known as ‘galamsey,’ with a focus on preventive measures and sustainable practices.
Speaking during a campaign stop in Kpone Katamanso on Tuesday, Dr. Bawumia emphasized the need to regulate the small-scale mining sector and implement reforms to protect the environment while promoting responsible mining.
Central to his strategy is empowering the Geological Survey Authority to take a leading role in prospecting for minerals. Dr. Bawumia noted that currently, many small-scale miners operate through “trial and error” methods, often causing significant environmental damage by digging indiscriminately without proper geological data.
To address this, he proposed that the Geological Survey Authority should map out all the gold reserves in the country to guide miners on where to extract resources responsibly.
In addition to this preventive approach, Dr. Bawumia proposed the creation of community mining schemes where small-scale miners would be assigned specific areas with confirmed mineral deposits. These schemes would be regulated to ensure that miners work under lawful conditions, using safe and sustainable methods.
“So one needs to look at the whole regime of small-scale mining and sanitise that regime, regularise the regime. Make sure that the Geological Survey Authority of Ghana does the mapping for where all the gold reserves are.
“At the moment people are just doing trial and error, destroying our environment. There is no data backing where they go. They just go and dig, they don’t find, they go to the next place and start digging. they don’t find, they go to the next place.
“But I want us to set up community mining schemes with certainty from the geological survey department that here you have gold. In that case, we can make sure that those who are mining there are regularised. We bring in these gold catcher machines that don’t use mercury and make sure they are not in water bodies.
Bawumia also stressed the need for robust enforcement of existing mining laws, emphasizing that illegal miners often hide under the cover of night or in remote areas to evade authorities. He pointed out that regulation and licensing of miners would discourage such behavior and allow for greater accountability.
“So we direct them and license them into areas so that they do responsible mining and environmentally sustainable mining.
“That is the way you stop this. But if you don’t regulate them then they will hide to do it at night and when they feel people are not watching them, that’s where they will go.
“They will get into the water bodies. But we need to regulate them and we need to also enforce the laws that are already existent,” he stated.
