Professor of Finance and Economist at the University of Ghana, Prof Godfred Bokpin, has called for a national review of the Mahama administration’s fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, saying the government’s interventions appear inadequate compared with the scale of destruction caused by the practice.
He said the country needed to assess whether the government was meeting the targets and objectives it set for itself when it assumed office, rather than measuring progress mainly by the number of arrests made and equipment seized.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, October 31, during a discussion on the President Mahama administration’s fight against galamsey, Prof Bokpin said it was important to establish clear measures for assessing the government’s performance.
“We need to ask ourselves: what were the clear targets we set for ourselves as a country when the new administration took over, in terms of how it wanted to respond to irresponsible mining?” he asked.
He questioned whether the fight was being assessed mainly through arrests and the seizure of mining equipment, including changfans, instead of measurable progress towards ending illegal mining.
“Are we looking at it just in terms of the number of arrests, changfans and all of that? What were the goals? What were the targets? What were the objectives? The milestones?” he asked.
With President John Mahama having spent more than a year and a half in office, Prof Bokpin said the time was right for a comprehensive national assessment of the government’s efforts.
He said that such a review would help determine whether the country was on track and whether the interventions introduced so far were sufficient to address the problem.
“I think President Mahama has been in office for more than one and a half years; we should have a national review. Are we on track? Is that all we ask for the government to do? Is that all that the government will be able to achieve within one and a half years?” he quizzed.
Prof Bokpin further questioned whether the resources and efforts being deployed by the government matched the scale of environmental destruction caused by illegal mining.
In his assessment, the current response was far below what was required to tackle the crisis.
“Are we matching the effort against the scale of disaster we are confronted with?” he asked.
“From that angle, for me, I will say that the intervention is far less in proportion to the scale of disaster we are dealing with.”
The economist also suggested that the government’s difficulty in mounting a stronger response could be linked to the role of State institutions and officials in the illegal mining problem.
He said that the State itself could be contributing to the persistence of galamsey, making it difficult to mobilise the level of national action needed to address the threat.
“This is only so because the State itself, my considered view, is that the State itself is complicit in this matter. The State may be playing a facilitating role in all of this,” he said.
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