The Director of Communications of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, has described John Dramani Mahama’s pledge to deploy Artificial Intelligence to help fight illegal mining activities if he is elected president in the upcoming December 7 general elections as mere political rhetoric.

Ahiagbah, on his X handle, said it is impossible to win the fight against galamsey with Mr. Mahama as president and accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of being promoters of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

“The NDC are promoters of galamsey. Therefore, H.E Mahama’s promise to use AI-powered plan to combat galamsey is a vote-seeking gimmick. Galamsy is an existential problem that requires inputs from all strata of society to combat. Resolving the galamsey menace is impossible with H.E John Mahama and the NDC because they are promoters and beneficiaries of galamsey.”

Mahama, in an address at the 3rd Annual Transformational Dialogue on Small-scale Mining at the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani, said his government will use “AI to locate all small-scale mining and galamsey operations, track excavators, and geofence all concessions” to help coordinate and monitor activities within the small-scale mining sector to reduce environmental destruction.

Ahiagbah further referred to some cases, including what he said was a “widely publicised 2020 video of Kwaku Boahen, then Deputy Communications Officer of the NDC, promising a golden age of galamsey to voters in mining communities across the country,” and also Mahama’s promise “to free galamsey convicts in 2020, at a campaign event at Mpohor,” to buttress his point that the fight against galamsey under a Mahama administration will be fruitless.