A page 12 story in yesterday’s Daily Guide publication – Licensed Mine Hijacked, National Security Accused; NDC MP In The Mix – paints a vivid and disturbing picture of the wages of illegal mining activities in the country vis-à-vis the complicity or better still hypocrisy of state actors.
We are compelled to just ignore so-called government interventions to arrest illegal mining activities in the country. We are nowhere near addressing the canker which is worsening by the day; not only because of the enormity of the illegality, but as a result of dearth of sufficient commitment on the part of government.
The takeover of a licensed mining site as the story stated by National Security operatives in the Tarkwa area of the Western Region and the inability to have the challenges addressed exposes the hypocrisy of state agencies which claim to be averse to the menace and, therefore, fighting it. Not so when even the so-called anti-galamsey taskforces are being accused of extorting monies from both illegal and legal miners.
Here is a legal mining company whose site was stormed by state agencies alongside the illegal reconnection of power to the site when the original owner asked that supply be stopped so the company is exempted from the accumulating costs.
When the law of the jungle replaces the rule of law, citizens have cause to be worried.
A country blessed with such an abundance of gold yet unable to regulate this resource for the good of all.
While we sympathise with the licensed owner of the site, RMG Mining, we would ask our compatriots to recall what the National Democratic Congress (NDC) did with the subject of illegal mining or galamsey during their campaign for power.
Today, Ghanaians are in a better position to differentiate between the hypocrisy surrounding this subject as being enacted by such stories and the reality.
There is no better definition of ‘resource curse’ than a situation where foreigners – Chinese are provided state cover to flout the laws of the land.
Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) staff who attempted to disconnect the illegally reconnected power to the site, as the story stated, have been threatened with death.
Those who hit the streets campaigning against illegal mining in the gold-bearing areas of the country no longer consider the subject worth crusading for. That is what hypocrisy stands for.
The appetite to invest in this country is waning because the laws are being turned upside down.
We are endowed with gold as we are simultaneously saddled with multitude of challenges as represented by the degradation of our environment and security challenges -resource curse.
Ruling party activists are acting with impunity in the face of the anomalies in the gold mining areas of the country.
The hijacking of the licensed mining site as reported by the Fourth Estate and the underpinning developments beat imagination.
We can bet our last farthing that the subject under review has the full support of the corridor of power, otherwise how dare they?
With the National Security apparatus refusing to respond to the Fourth Estate’s questions about the subject, the conclusion can easily be drawn that the hijacking of the licensed mining site is intended to serve the interest of some party loyalists.
Be it as it may, we can infer that the country is listing as mariners would say.
Ghanaians should speak out now.