<\/p>\n
Former President Kufuor during the interview with Rt. Hon. Prof. Mike Oquaye<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n FORMER PRESIDENT John Agyekum Kufour says\u00a0\u00a0 the devastating impact of illegal mining popularly known as \u2018galamsey\u2019 in various parts of the country in recent times could be tackled by government\u00a0 if indigenous\u00a0 people\u00a0 in their respective communities\u00a0 were made to\u00a0\u00a0 have a fair share of\u00a0 mineral royalties.<\/p>\n Speaking in an interview with Rt. Hon. Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye as part of\u00a0 a series of dialogue in reviewing\u00a0 Ghana\u2019s 1992\u00a0 Constitution\u00a0 by\u00a0 the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA),\u00a0 recently, he said\u00a0 that\u00a0 illegal mining\u00a0 continued to thrive due to inadequate policies aimed at making individuals\u00a0 directly benefit from\u00a0 mining.<\/p>\n He said \u201cGeology has proven that every bit of our land is gold that is why galamsey is everywhere now but, what is our policy in tackling this galamsey thing. Supposing in my village there is a stream which is found to be gold plaited, a youngster who is well-educated and unemployed would never get a licence to go into small-scale mining. I tell you they don\u2019t stand a chance but a big shot will show up and have a concession in the village and influence the chiefs, use the boys as they dirty themselves and the streams.\u201d<\/p>\n The former President said that in order to avert the trend especially, where foreigners particularly the Chinese were given\u00a0 the opportunity to mine while indigenous people\u00a0 were molested and\u00a0 criminalised,\u00a0\u00a0 communities should\u00a0 be given a fair share of the mineral resources.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are we doing us a country to think of a policy that will make all Ghanaians everywhere feel they are stakeholders? As a it is now, they don\u2019t get a share, if we do it well the business people will get their fair\u00a0 share, the local people will get their fair\u00a0 share\u00a0\u00a0 as well as the state\u00a0 the state\u00a0 will get it share strangely, we send soldiers, guards they go and molest\u00a0 the locals.\u00a0 Everywhere we find Chinese and we haven\u2019t had report from them on how they got the gold,\u201d the former President added.<\/p>\n In his reflections on\u00a0 both intraparty and interparty\u00a0 politics in the current democratic era,\u00a0 which he said was characterised by\u00a0 \u2018monocracy\u2019, he said\u00a0 the phenomenon\u00a0 was\u00a0 not\u00a0 new in the body politic of the nation\u00a0 given the need for\u00a0 individuals to benefit directly from\u00a0 politicians during campaign.<\/p>\n He mentioned that there has, however, been over indulgence in the use of money in politics citing factors such as population explosion, rural urban drift and a major factor to be able to capture political power.<\/p>\n He stated \u201cIf you want to go to Parliament, you need tonnes of money to influence people because everybody thinks you are going in there to further your\u00a0 lots, so if that\u2019s the case, why don\u2019t I get my share before you get there. When you get there\u00a0 and I want to come and see you, do I get access? So,\u00a0 they will hold you tight and since ambition is driving you, you will also go\u00a0 all\u00a0 the length\u00a0 to get\u00a0 money.\u00a0 When you pay so much to get into parliament you also need to find ways and means to recoup.\u201d<\/p>\n BY Ebenezer K. Amponsah<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former President Kufuor during the interview with Rt. Hon. Prof. Mike Oquaye \u00a0 FORMER PRESIDENT John Agyekum Kufour says\u00a0\u00a0 the devastating impact of illegal mining popularly known as \u2018galamsey\u2019 in various parts of the country in recent times could be tackled by government\u00a0 if indigenous\u00a0 people\u00a0 in their respective communities\u00a0 were made to\u00a0\u00a0 have a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1257206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[6407,4323,6013,1967],"class_list":["post-1257204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-kufuor","tag-mineral","tag-royalties","tag-share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1257204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1257204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1257204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1257204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}