The unlawful mining activities (galamsey) that are taking place in people’s bedrooms, according to the Deputy Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, George Mireku Duker, are not the Minister’s fault.
In an interview with Akua Boakyewaa Yiadom on Adom FM’s Burning Issues, he emphasised that politics should be abandoned in favour of a direct confrontation of the problem since the answer to ‘galamsey’ lies in people changing their minds.
“People are doing ‘galamsey’ in their rooms and you expert me as the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources to know? I won’t know from where I am. Look it’s about time Ghanaians put politics aside and fight this ‘galamsey’. I think fighting this ‘galamsey’ is the matter of changing our minds as Ghanaians,” he said.
He went ahead to say that people are recirculating videos of the previous state of ‘galamsey’ to portray that the State of ‘galamsey’ in the country is getting worse.
The Minister in charge of mining believes there is improvement in ways mining is done in the country.
He says South Africa even came to learn how Ghana is regularising and managing ‘galamsey’ efforts.
“People are now re-circulating old videos of the ‘galamsey’ portraying that the situation is worse now. Countries like South Africa, galamsey is also one of their biggest challenges and people even came to Ghana just to learn how we regularise and manage our ‘galamsey’ efforts,” he said.