By Lawrence Odoom/Phalonzy
The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has identified entrenched “local complicity” within mining communities as a formidable obstacle crippling the country’s protracted battle against illegal mining, warning that enforcement measures alone cannot eradicate the galamsey menace.
Despite years of sweeping interventions from military-led crackdowns and sweeping policy overhauls to nationwide public sensitization campaigns, illicit mining operations continue to fester across the country, largely because they are tacitly enabled at the grassroots level, the Ministry asserts.
Speaking on The Big Issue on Channel One TV on Saturday, April 25, Ministry Spokesperson Paa Kwesi Schandorf conceded that the fight has been gravely hamstrung by the active participation of residents in affected enclaves.
“If you look at the raft of interventions that the government has rolled out, even in the past and what we are doing now, and you examine all of them, and at the end of the day, there is still local complicity, if I have to put it that way, you are not going to go anywhere,” he said.
He further stressed that the endurance of galamsey is not solely perpetuated by external actors but is often sustained and shielded by indigenes who either directly partake in or covertly facilitate the illegal enterprise.
“Because the truth of the matter is that, and it’s unfortunate, if you go to many of the mining communities where illegal mining has become very prominent, it is the locals who actually enable it,” he added.
According to the Ministry, this stark reality continues to sabotage enforcement operations, with anti-galamsey task forces routinely confronting resistance, concealment, and logistical support orchestrated from within the very communities ravaged by the practice.