'Galamsey': How Ghana Is Tackling Illegal Artisanal Mining

"My sense is that in governance, as in any enterprise, the fundamental requirement is for political will and political commitment. We have the regulations in place. In fact, as an individual, I don't think we need any additional regulation in managing the environment. But given the scale and the scale and the impact of "galamsey" on society, I belong to the school of thought which says that, there must be a temporary halt in order that the government can, you know, effectively assess the situation. We need stakeholder engagement [...]. Now, whatever the composition of that stakeholder engagement is, I have suggested in my policy brief that there has to be a stakeholder analysis in order to determine who these actors that can help the government or the state, to fight against illegal mining," Aboagye says.

"When you come to Ghana and you're looking at the players in Ghana's mining industry, we have the large-scale and small-scale mining sectors. The statistics are so clear that currently, the artisanal small-scale mining sector is contributing an average of 40 percent to the total gold produced in-country [...]. [Illegal mining in Ghana] It’s been underpinned by some driving factors, which are; you go to the mining catchment communities. I would say some level of poverty is told in those areas. There is some level of unemployment situation which is driving this. Some would people say greed is driving this, but the majority of these concerns are tied to livelihood issues [...]. The government of the day has initiated some measures, at least from the last seven years, deployed military to bring this [illegal mining activities] down. So, the government has had more engagements than ever," Gomashie explains.