Suleman Koney, the chief executive officer of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, has called for a medium to long-term strategy in addressing the menace of illegal mining, popularly known as “galamsey”.

His call follows the renewed fight against illegal mining by the new Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor.

Speaking on The Asaase Breakfast Show with Nana Yaa Mensah, Koney said the deployment of military personnel to guard water bodies alone is not a panacea to solving the problem.

“It is so difficult to talk about this thing publicly but the reality is that there has to be a structured approach. It has to be consistent and not just that, it has to be the responsibility of duty bearers because you can’t just have operation vanguard operating in vacuum,” he said.

Koney added: “People operate within a community, what is the role of the various duty bearers within the community? It just cannot be a reactive approach all the time, so what is the responsibility of duty bearers within the communities, the various district assemblies, various municipal assemblies, the chiefs and opinion leaders, everybody has a responsibility.”

A collective fight
The Chamber of Mines CEO said there must be an all-hands-on deck approach if the renewed fight against illegal small scale mining will succeed.

“Everybody has a responsibility, but if we assume that we have operation vanguard and therefore we can go to sleep, and everything will be fine, honestly, I don’t think we would be successful in using that approach,” Koney stressed.