File photo of a galamsey site
Illegal mining or galamsey is going to cost us a lot of colossal damage than we can fathom now. The continual perpetuation of this menace without a decisive check or truncation is going to lead to a major health disaster and so this is a clarion call on the government and the necessary authorities like the MINCOM, to maximise their efforts to avert the catastrophic situation that awaits the nation of Ghana, if this menace is not abruptly stopped.
Mining has to be done at all cost, yes indeed as a trained metallurgical engineer, I know too well that minerals do not benefit anyone if it remains under the earth’s crust, but the problem and challenge is the crooked methods being deployed without any regard for the environment.
Mining really requires a lot of water for the beneficiation process to liberate the gold and get it extracted. But, unlike the large-scale mines, which harvest water and use it in their sediment ponds that are recycled for processing of the ore, and the resulting pulp or slurry is directed into a well-controlled containment called the tailings dam, which is very much monitored with piezometers and other methods to prevent seepage into any river or environment.
The illegal miners or galamseyers are not prepared to invest in the construction of dams into which they might harvest water or collect water to use for their washing process on the trommels. They want to spend little but expect much return from their gold exploitation. The large mines have to post reclamation bonds, just to ensure that the EPA is certain they would reclaim the land after the mining ceases or is decommissioned. But, the galamseyers do none of these.
Because even our enemies would have spared us this agony if we were at war. They need to be targeted and shot at to eliminate them before they extinct the entire generation now and/or future generations.
Ghana is already battling with climate change risks such as erratic rainfall patterns, rise in temperatures, sea rise and coastal erosions, floods, as well as droughts, with worse predictions for the future, which would have imminent health effects in the various ecological regions of the country.
These risks, including loss of biodiversity and forest cover, which is being exacerbated by the galamsey menace, would create an enormous health effect with its associated health cost, which will impact the already stressed health budget of the nation.
The nation as a whole must, with the steering of its leaders, face these challenges head-on now, before the situation gets out of hand and the very severe consequences overwhelm us. Let’s act now before it is too late.
