Activities of illegal mining around a water body
Since international and civil society pressure upped on us to deal with the galamsey threat to our national development and collective being, we have heard very little about suspects being dragged to court to show reason why they rape our collective heritage.
As we would recall, the major case was that one in which a major suspect, a female Chinese – Aisha Huang – was repatriated.
Since then, particularly during the militarised operations, it had been more of a scatter approach than lining suspects before the law.
Thankfully, we have been compelled to start where we left off – which is nailing and prosecuting people – foreigners and locals alike – engaged in the clear acts of subversion by all serious standards.
Strongest signal
That is why the photos of Chinese nationals on the front pages of several newspapers suggesting that prosecutions are underway is refreshing.
Unfortunately, the major challenge in our economy is about some Ghanaians sometimes leaking intelligence on our national economy to foreigners. We started with GTP and ATL designs; leaped into timber products; and the next thing was that we were taking them home and showing our wealth as a people.
So, we struck hands with them in partnerships in the same manner we would later invite Nigerian and Benin bandits into town for illicit business purposes.
That is why the prosecution of the Chinese should send a signal to our brothers and sisters who are conspiring with foreign nationals that government is applying the right therapy in fighting the disease.
Burn or sell?
When government decided to be ruthless in sending that initial signal about its commitment to dealing with the situation, its steps got wobbly about accusations of confiscation and appropriation theories. But, in our opinion, the real issues were political will, making a statement and tidying up the mess against the background of official collusion and pussyfooting.
In our part of the world where the clock of progress appears to run differently, we cannot afford to make all the noise while scallywags take us for a ride and play hide and seek with the law, buoyed on by self-seeking politicians.
When organisations like the Economic and Organised Crimes were setup, the focus was on the opposition politicians. We forgot that our lack of commitment in using our newly generated decentralisation machinery would result in increasingly worrying levels of informality across the spectrum.
Then, our target was the other politician. Having missed the mark, we must own up and vigorously begin putting names to faces under our digitisation initiatives so that we commit resources to solving this basic challenge that other nations solved centuries ago.
Bring it on
At this point, we believe merely immobilising logistics and chasing away culprits should not be enough.
Having begun with who we regard as the major actors now, what about dragging those recalcitrant ones before the law courts on sight as the taskforce frantically pursues the suspects?
That is the only platform that would seal the debate about whether or not the taskforce is right in burning the excavators, changfans and other illegal mining equipment, which officials of the relevant state institutions pretended not to see, as the demented youth frantically invaded our forests and water bodies, looting the resources to the bone and marrow.
Have the prosecutions really started? If yes, let’s see how they run and the rulings that the august courts would make on what to do with illegal implements when some officials are sleeping on their jobs in such critical matters.
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