Mr Senyo Hosi, Convener of the OneGhana Movement and Trustee of the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey, has called for a fundamental shift in Ghana’s approach to illegal small-scale mining, arguing that the country must focus on fixing rather than simply stopping the activity.
He said the deeply entrenched nature of galamsey, which involved miners, families, traditional authorities, businesses and even religious institutions, made it unrealistic for government to believe that enforcement alone could eliminate the practice.
Mr Hosi said the economic incentives associated with illegal mining had become too strong, particularly for young people in mining communities, making the activity difficult to eradicate through arrests and destruction of mining equipment.
“A JHS school dropout goes into a pit and is making GH¢3,000 to GH¢10,000 a week. How many of the people in this office make GH¢3,000 a week?” he asked.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, August 22, he said Ghana had moved beyond the point where it could realistically pretend that galamsey could simply be stopped.
“Our only path forward is fixing that, I’m saying, not fighting and stopping that. We can’t,” he said.
Mr Hosi proposed the formalisation and regularisation of people currently engaged in illegal mining, saying many of them were seeking legitimacy rather than simply operating outside the law.
He said government could use formalisation as an opportunity to introduce better mining technologies and practices that would improve gold recovery while reducing environmental degradation.
According to him, some illegal miners recover only about 30 to 40 percent of the gold contained in the ore because of inefficient processing methods, while responsible and technologically advanced operations can achieve recovery rates of between 90 and 95 percent.
He said the difference in recovery could provide an economic opportunity to finance measures aimed at correcting the environmental damage associated with mining.
“Can we rather think of formalising these people, regularising them? One of the things they seek is legitimacy,” he said.
Mr Hosi said the formalisation process should not merely involve granting licences but should establish technological and environmental standards that miners would be required to meet.
He said such standards could help ensure that mining activities generated economic value without continuing to degrade the country’s water bodies and forest reserves.
The OneGhana Movement Convener said the country needed to acknowledge the extent to which galamsey had become embedded in local economies and communities.
He said chiefs, families and other community actors had become connected to the activity, while the wider economy had also benefited from gold production.
He noted that gold currently accounted for about 63 percent of Ghana’s total exports, making it difficult to separate the country’s economic dependence on gold from the realities surrounding artisanal and small-scale mining.
Mr Hosi said policymakers should therefore approach the issue with realism rather than continue to frame it solely as an enforcement problem.
He argued that the political leadership lacked the courage to confront the full complexity of the problem and was likely to continue announcing interventions without adequately measuring their outcomes.
“We can’t fix this. We have moved past the point of no return,” he said, stressing that his position was based on what he considered a practical policy approach rather than an ideal solution.
Mr Hosi also challenged government institutions to provide Ghanaians with regular and accessible data on the condition of the country’s natural resources.
He said the success or failure of anti-galamsey interventions should be assessed through measurable outcomes, particularly the quality of water bodies and the condition of forest reserves.
He called on Ghana Water Company Limited to publish water-quality data regularly, including information on turbidity, so citizens could determine whether the country’s water bodies were improving or deteriorating.
“Every week, Mr President, Ghana Water should publish the data on the quality of our water,” he said.
He also called for regular publication of reports on food quality and the condition of Ghana’s forest reserves by the relevant institutions.
Mr Hosi said such information would allow citizens and policymakers to objectively determine whether interventions against illegal mining were producing the desired results.
He said government should move away from using the number of arrests made or mining equipment destroyed as the main indicators of success.
“You can arrest one million people, and if the water is not improving, it is rather getting worse. Tell me, what is the policy outcome of the intervention?” he asked.
Mr Hosi said the country’s anti-galamsey strategy should ultimately be judged by whether water bodies were becoming cleaner, forests were being restored and environmental degradation was being reversed.
He therefore urged policymakers to focus on outcomes rather than inputs, saying regular publication of credible environmental data would bring greater accountability to the fight against galamsey.
