Chinese galamsey
The ‘galamsey’ menace has moved another notch as government unfurls a fresh initiative to arrest it.
Prospecting for gold is not a new phenomenon in a country literally riddled with the precious mineral. From Elmina, the Portuguese expression for the pot of gold, a reference to the abundance of the mineral in our part of the world when they landed on the coast, to Nangodi in the Northern part of Ghana, there is no shortage of it.
We were not christened Gold Coast for nothing. On school compounds, behind houses and other unexpected places people have found gold.
It is impossible to ask such lucky fellows who find this great mineral behind their houses not to mine it and make some bucks from their efforts. It is a human instinct we cannot stop no matter how many taskforces government raises in that direction.
For an industry which offers a lucrative occupation to over 700,000 citizens directly and indirectly in a country suffering the debilitating effects of a defiant unemployment challenge, a more holistic approach would be a better option than being presented by government.
It is worth observing how many have joined the fray of this unregulated mining.
From young men and ladies with no source of livelihood who find one in ‘galamsey’ to chiefs and police officers who have discovered the wealth that comes with the occupation, there appears to be no stopping the new craze.
In spite of the economic gains which come with the unregulated or illegal mining, the other side of the coin is unpleasant.
The environmental challenges and the loss of farmlands through chemical and physical degradation of the soil are some of the issues to contend with, as the illegal mining yet lucrative occupation continues.
Chinese nationals have entered the business with sophisticated machinery edging out locals in some of the mining areas leading to security challenges and even fatalities at times.
What should we do under the circumstances? Deprive the youth of their source of livelihood and risk social challenges like armed robbery and others by clamping down on it?
Successive governments and mining companies have laid out an assortment of prescriptions over time but none has addressed the challenges.
The latest response to the ‘galamsey’ menace, which is the empanelling of a taskforce to address it, cannot be one of the result-yielding options; it is as best a joke.
A holistic approach is better than what doubtlessly is an ad hoc or kneejerk response, one that can set the ‘galamsey’ operatives and law enforcement agents on a bloody and protracted collision path, whose end is undeterminable.
The Kantamanto market land is still an issue and would be so for many months to come. With the Ghana Railway Development Authority laying bare its plan to develop the place into a modern terminal, the plans announced by the Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) sound like a kind of joke full of weirdness given the assortment of claims over the land in question.
If there is anything like confusion among government agencies over a piece of public land, this is a typical example and it is a sad reflection of how governance has been reduced in the country today.
The traditional owners of the land have also jumped into the fray demanding a renewal of the deal, which led to the ceding of the land to government.
The whole episode gives the subject a non-serious posture. In the face of the confusion and somewhat bad faith, the victims of the controversial fire stand helpless not knowing what to believe.
A certain meeting is said to have been planned for next week by the fire victims and government agents but we wonder whether there is any iota of sincerity in such engagements when there is confusion about the legal status of the land in question.
Did the AMA chief not understand what was at stake when he made his controversial announcement about a so-called modern market? He surely did not know that with the rule of law prevailing in the country today such undertakings call for adequate research before the campaign trail-rating announcement he spewed soon after the inferno.
From all indications, the AMA has no authority talking about developing the controversial land into a modern market, the place being the property of another government agency.
According to the Transport Minister, Gifty Attivor, the acquisition of the property dates back to 1901.
Hearing her yesterday even as she applied diplomacy, lest she sounded bellicose, it was not difficult to deduce that the Kantamanto land will remain in the doldrums for a long time to come.
The primary responsibility of every government is to provide for the needs of its people. The victims of Kantamanto could easily say they have been let down by their own government given their helplessness in the wake of what befell them.
Having suffered the rubbing of salt into the injury inflicted upon them after the blaze which reduced their fortunes to ashes recently, they are being subjected to confused remarks by various state agencies.
In this traumatic state of theirs, the last thing the victims of the Kantamanto fire should countenance is outright mendacity from government officials, who without doubt, are confused about what to do.
Telling the victims the truth at this stage would be more beneficial to them than keeping them in perpetual limbo.
Joe Ghartey
Hon. Joe Ghartey has called for the telecasting of future high-notched corruption cases. What a fantastic proposal. We could not have agreed more with the position, whose many advantages towards reducing to the barest minimum, the endemic graft threatening our political morality is beyond reproach.
Given the uselessness of the varied interventions so far to reduce graft in public institutions and others outside them, such novelties as giving opportunities to many Ghanaians to simultaneously listen to and watch proceedings about corruption cases in court should not be hushed.
The negative repercussions of graft in any given community are too apparent to be ignored, more so, in a newfound oil-driven economy.
Our economic status as an oil-exporting country predisposes us to corruption, something civil society organisations and politicians claim have started showing up already. When such cases pop up, as they surely will, the courts must deal with them. Being novelties when they occur, the need to give ample opportunity to curious Ghanaians to learn and know the issues at stake should not be overlooked.
We have heard many contributions supporting the Honourable gentleman’s position and encourage others who would not see the goodness in the arrangement to remove their political lenses and be objective, for once, about the proposal.
As we advance in experience in our practice of democracy, unknown challenges are bound to emerge and these must be tackled in the best of forms so that questions about bias or objectivity would not rear their heads.
We can bet our last cedi that the advantages inherent in the novelty of opening up the Supreme Court to television cameras far outweigh shutting the bowels of the courtroom to the public.
We recall how some opponents of the novelty, even when it was already operational, sought to give it a bad name and hang it; an undertaking which matched attributes of political machinations. With a general consensus about the goodness of the undertaking, it has survived the intrigues and even waxed stronger with the passing days.
In a similar vein, it is our take that Parliament should, as a matter of urgency, give a legislative backing to the proposal so that Ghanaians would not be victims of propagandists, who would stop at nothing to throw dust into the eyes of their compatriots.
When persons entangled in graft are showed live defending themselves against the facts of the case in full glare of the public as they view the proceedings, the war against corruption would gain an important impetus.
Understanding how corrupt public officials ply their trade is an important way of discouraging others from meddling in graft. Naming and shaming corrupt public officials and their accomplices in the private sector will be enhanced when television cameras are allowed in the courtrooms.
Morality in officialdom is now an endangered virtue. Instances of top public officials resorting to outright lies when they are especially ensnared in the web of immorality are worryingly rampant.
The moral anomaly instructively goes hand-in-hand with graft. Most of the lies recorded in officialdom are spewed to protect corrupt activities- an aberration which appears to be mutating dangerously and pervading all public institutions, leaving in its wake major structural cracks.
So endemic has it become today that it is losing its importance, even as front page stories in media establishments. This is an apt indication about how deep the aberration has eaten into the social fabric.
The Government information machinery must work hard to restore its lost image among most Ghanaians. The perception that this department is largely a propaganda outfit whose releases must be ingested with a pinch of salt is responsible for its image predicament.
A few months ago the information minister struggled to correct credibility-deficient disclosures emanating from his office, among which is the name-change of the Flagstaff House. His stuttering efforts left him bereft of the confidence and virility needed for his occupation.
Sincerity in government and public institutions no longer matter in the scheme of things. Public servants and political office holders through public relations officers throw so much dust into the eyes of members of the public that it would seem like these persons are not answerable to the people they are supposed to serve.
One of the leading private newspapers did a story recently about how an American company accused the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly of demanding bribe from them before a certain contract could materialize in their favour.
The money was going to be shared among some top men at the Finance Ministry, he allegedly explained to the foreigners who lost the deal because they did not play ball. Nothing has happened since the publication and the official has not been questioned about the allegation.
We have had cause to point out the many anomalies regarding recruitment into the Police Service including promotion – something the administration always denies through its PR department.
A recent story about how some top officials were caught red-handed engaged in the recruitment anomalies, confirmed the widespread instances of graft in the law-enforcement agency.
Even before the foregone, some officers were nabbed at the Police Hospital engaged in medical examination procedures for some willing bribe payers. Although the story made disgusting headlines, the public is yet to hear what punitive action was taken against the culprits.
The toddling oil industry is already mired in widespread graft, as a mafia fiefdom is gaining root. Perhaps it is already suffering the resource curse associated with the natural endowment.
Our country is close to the precipice, propelled by an accelerated and multifaceted incidence of graft, leaving no institution untouched.
Ghana Police
The security situation in the Garden City of Kumasi is definitely not normal. It has not been so for a while now triggering consternation among both residents and others outside it.
Those who think it is inching towards a failed city status would not be too wrong considering the brazenness with which the hoodlums straddle the city like excited conquerors!
A demonstration in Accra was recently cancelled because according to the Police they had to deploy most of their personnel to the Ashanti Regional capital to restore order because of deadly breaches of the law. For the Regional Police Commander, DCOP Augustine Gyening to therefore, claim that all is well in his area of command is a rich remark.
Being the second largest city and most economically significant besides Accra, situations of near-breakdown of law and order, as being manifested in Kumasi, should attract more attention than a mere media remark of “there is no cause for alarm”.
There is certainly something wrong in a city which has started witnessing fatal actions inflicted by hoodlums, some in broad daylight, as residents run for dear life. Such dare-devil operations, having almost become features of the city, are even more worrying, when we consider the almost impossibility that the suspects would be apprehended anytime soon.
If the regional police commander is only seeking to manage panic by such rich remarks, then he can be pardoned, but not so when he sincerely sees the unfolding trend in Kumasi as something not worth an additional police attention.
Under the prevailing reality in Kumasi, it is our take that a special attention is directed at the city with a view to dealing appropriately with the deadly situation in the city.
The political connotation, which some are imputing to the development, is not socially wholesome. Out of their helpless situations, some victims think there is a deliberate attempt to leave them to their fate. We pray that is not the case.
Be it as it may, we wish to call on the Commander-In-Chief to summon his security chiefs once more to review the situation with a view to dealing with it a once-and-for-all blow.
We should be able to call a spade a spade when confronted with such deadly situations as we seek an effective antidote.
Kumasi, before the 2012 polls, was a bedlam of local politics with hoodlums marauding as they pleased. The Pankrono incident in which some of the miscreants messed up a registration centre and went scot free is still fresh in our memories. The then District Police Commander, who sought to apprehend the culprits using available means, had his fingers badly burnt because his superiors were not enthused about his passion.
Many ignoble incidents have taken place in Kumasi since then with the principal players nowhere near police custodies or the courtrooms.
If they are not stopped, the hoodlums will very soon turn their attention elsewhere spreading their ignoble concept.
The security situation in the Garden City of Kumasi is definitely not normal. It has not been so for a while now triggering consternation among both residents and others outside it.
Those who think it is inching towards a failed city status would not be too wrong considering the brazenness with which the hoodlums straddle the city like excited conquerors!
A demonstration in Accra was recently cancelled because according to the Police they had to deploy most of their personnel to the Ashanti Regional capital to restore order because of deadly breaches of the law. For the Regional Police Commander, DCOP Augustine Gyening to therefore, claim that all is well in his area of command is a rich remark.
Being the second largest city and most economically significant besides Accra, situations of near-breakdown of law and order, as being manifested in Kumasi, should attract more attention than a mere media remark of “there is no cause for alarm”.
There is certainly something wrong in a city which has started witnessing fatal actions inflicted by hoodlums, some in broad daylight, as residents run for dear life. Such dare-devil operations, having almost become features of the city, are even more worrying, when we consider the almost impossibility that the suspects would be apprehended anytime soon.
If the regional police commander is only seeking to manage panic by such rich remarks, then he can be pardoned, but not so when he sincerely sees the unfolding trend in Kumasi as something not worth an additional police attention.
Under the prevailing reality in Kumasi, it is our take that a special attention is directed at the city with a view to dealing appropriately with the deadly situation in the city.
The political connotation, which some are imputing to the development, is not socially wholesome. Out of their helpless situations, some victims think there is a deliberate attempt to leave them to their fate. We pray that is not the case.
Be it as it may, we wish to call on the Commander-In-Chief to summon his security chiefs once more to review the situation with a view to dealing with it a once-and-for-all blow.
We should be able to call a spade a spade when confronted with such deadly situations as we seek an effective antidote.
Kumasi, before the 2012 polls, was a bedlam of local politics with hoodlums marauding as they pleased. The Pankrono incident in which some of the miscreants messed up a registration centre and went scot free is still fresh in our memories. The then District Police Commander, who sought to apprehend the culprits using available means, had his fingers badly burnt because his superiors were not enthused about his passion.
Many ignoble incidents have taken place in Kumasi since then with the principal players nowhere near police custodies or the courtrooms.
If they are not stopped, the hoodlums will very soon turn their attention elsewhere spreading their ignoble concept.
Lt Col Larry Gbevlo-Lartey
National security management is fast becoming an embarrassment under the current coordinator.
Now synonymous with Rambo-style misconduct, the national security outfit has continued to pander dangerously to the whims and dictates of the General Secretary of the ruling party. He is said to have ordered last week’s infamous deployment of operatives to the Supreme Court on an unsolicited mission to ostensibly protect the controversial pink sheets in the custody of the judiciary.
The dust which the unsolicited action generated manifested in the flurry of vitriolic exchanges on the airwaves among various stakeholders including amazingly the retired Lt. Col Gbevlo-Lartey, who as a lawyer, should have been wary of the implications of the mission he directed.
A very visible National Security Coordinator whose helplessness as the Garden City of Kumasi slips into a state of chaos with dozens of inexplicable murders dotting the diary of the CID in the regional capital, appears to have found solace in a reckless operation and a loud presence on social media.
The spurious and pedantic arguments advanced for the unholy Supreme Court mission by the agitated coordinator only worsens the unsavoury situation.
A palpable coordinated response to douse the confusion following the failed mission was too visible in the statement issued by the Police. A Police PRO who was alerted about the unfurling security drama by a radio station lied when he turned around to issue a statement to suggest that the law enforcement agents knew about the questionable failed mission.
State agencies these days resort to lies when they are caught in embarrassing situations- an anomaly which questions the status of morality in such organizations where age-old ethos are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
The bias of the Gbevlo-Lartey-led National Security Council is no longer in doubt. It is too clear to be a subject of an argument given the actions of the former military officer in his crazy haste to impress the President.
The judiciary, we wish to remind the coordinator, is an independent arm of government operating strictly outside the ambit of the executive and the ruling party’s headquarters.
Given also the sensitivity of the case at hand, it can only pass as crazy, when a party to the case in question orders national security operatives to go and render protection to such vital documents as the pink sheets. Doubtlessly, this can only be an invitation for chaos in a highly polarized country holding its breath for the outcome of the court case. Such a conduct of the security coordinator- working in tandem with the NDC General Secretary- exudes fetid smell to our political nostrils.
It is important that we maintain confidence in the courts lest the untoward happens. This can only be achieved when such recklessness from Gbevlo-Lartey is stopped forthwith.
The people of Ghana and the international community who are maintaining a keen eye on the proceedings in a technology-driven world, will also serve as judges of the outcome of the petition hearing.
Any miscalculation by the judiciary or any individual will not serve our interest as a nation. The demeanour, body-language and remarks of the judges are being watched by most Ghanaians as they are transfixed to their television sets.
It was relieving to learn that the strangers did not have access to the custody of the pink sheets. The repercussions of such an access could have been anything but acceptable and tranquil.
As for the mention of Asiedu Nketia as the man who requested the ill-timed action, it can only be regarded as a cock-and-bull story.
We pray that the judges who have found themselves by accident of history on the panel adjudicating this critical case will not allow themselves to be carried away, but do their duty to God and country without fear or favour. This is the only bulwark against political chaos and aloofness by citizens.
Alfred Vanderpuije, AMA Boss
Call it Kantamanto politics and your description of the intrigues being played out by the Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and others in the matter of the one-time sprawling market in Accra, the capital, would be dead right.
The actions and remarks of the head of the AMA, soon after the suspicious blaze reduced the market to ashes, smacked of arson. Indeed, many think that was the case, given the alacrity with which the gentleman deployed a grader to the site.
That that happened even before the so-called investigators set foot on the location worsens the puzzle and fuels probing questions about whether the political establishment can be so callous as to lose the humaneness required when dealing with citizens’ source of daily bread.
The sense of a budgetary allocation waiting for the project, soon after the fire, although doubtful, added to the puzzle about the Kantamanto Market affair.
Equally worrying is the politico-ethnocentric undertones being alluded to the whole project. We might not support this perception but suffice it to state that it is held by most of the victims, hundreds if not thousands of their dependents including the millions of politically active Ghanaians.
The remarks of the victims in their state of hopelessness are not favourable to national development and regrettably deepen the political chasm that already exists in the country.
Indeed, some Accra residents have expressed worry about how the indirect employment the market provided them has suddenly evaporated into thin air. Those who sell local dishes to the hundreds of traders and buyers at the place and others who buy for the purposes of retailing elsewhere in town or even outside Accra have been rendered unemployed by the reckless action of whoever was behind the arson, if that was the case. Most importantly, the link that market had with the trade movement of money to and fro, and for that matter the economy of Accra and Ghana, appears to be lost to those handling the matter this moment. Sooner than later, the far-reaching impact and effects would be felt by us all, irrespective of our partisan leanings.
We would have wished that we don’t fall victim to that kind of hardship that imposes pain on us.
It is a pity if those in government are oblivious to the economic implications of what befell the Kantamanto Market, as it appears to be the case.
Isolating the victims from the development of the market is to regard them as non-partners in a project in which they have a stake. Having entered into a legal agreement to occupy the place on a 50-year-lease period with the Ghana Railway Corporation, the victims have certainly been given a raw deal and can test the law if they so wish in a country which prides herself in upholding the rule of law.
The whole idea of strategic investment, which the authorities have already started touting about, smacks of the involvement of foreign businessmen, something which distances the project further away from the victims. Let the victims arrange bank credits themselves with government facilitation, if need be, for the reconstruction efforts and not some Shylock-minded strategic investors from another hemisphere.
The Vanderpuye module is not what development is about and we allow it at the peril of enhancing local entrepreneurship. Can’t we appreciate this reality fellow Ghanaians, especially those of you at the helm of affairs? It’s such a pity.
Chinese galamsey
Our Chinese guests are pushing us to the wall and it is time we acted to obviate further breaches of our laws.
The Obuasi murder of two locals by Chinese nationals operating in the country was the height of impunity by foreigners, and when the story was flashed in the media yesterday, it provoked widespread anger among Ghanaians.
We associate ourselves with the national anger and call for action to stop the Chinese from trampling upon our laws. The Chinese, being good guests of ours is an important determinant with regard to how long we can contain them in the country.
As we compose this commentary, a Chinese national is being held by the Police after allegedly killing his compatriot. The same man had earlier snatched a taxi, using a cleaver in a manner which had many asking whether he was not a mental case. A Ghanaian dare not show such brazenness in the streets of Beijing.
The breaches of our laws by the Chinese are especially approaching impunity level, a situation which calls for a government intervention, as being sought by the Obuasi West constituency.
Our country’s hospitability is legendary, but when this is abused, the need to take appropriate action should not be overlooked.
The brazenness of the Chinese, characteristic of Ghanaians, has received varied interpretations, all of which border on suspicion that they are being shielded by either government officials or individual businessmen who are fronting for them.
In the case of the murdered Ghanaians, we are being told that a certain soldier was involved in the purchase of the gold-bearing land and which constituted the source of the fatal trouble. It might be interesting to find who this soldier is and how he came into contact with the Chinese. A lot could be unravelled that would help in making a headway in this galamsey confusion.
We have been told earlier that the Chinese cannot come into the country without going through the requisite immigration procedures. But it would seem that the screening required before the issuance of visas to them have failed in most cases to determine the quality of the Chinese who find their way into the country.
It is instructive to recall how operatives of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) recently turned away over 20 Chinese nationals who were entering the country illegally.
The source of their confidence, when they start their flight to Ghana, is beyond our ken, but it could be that others succeeded in doing so in breach of our immigration laws.
There is a frightening influx of Chinese nationals into the country, some of them flouting the conditions of their stay so brazenly that, they constitute national security threats and not the well-secured pink sheets in the custody of the Supreme Court.
Kwadwo Asamoah aka Gawusu
The facts about the Kumasi murders are sketchy but the reality of their negative fall-outs cannot be doubted. Yesterday’s edition of this newspaper had a story about the murder of two persons.
The accompanying picture of the remains of one of the two persons murdered, in what has been given multifaceted interpretations- gang warfare, political warfare and outright criminality- by different people, depict the gruesome nature of the murder.
While we are unable to ascertain the veracity of the interpretations being ascribed to the murders, we are sure though that they have the unfortunate power to rock the boat in this volatile city, if it is not handled properly or treated like the Agbogbloshie murders.
The existence of hoodlums in Kumasi, who have worked for bad politicians during the last political campaign season including the biometric registration period is not doubtable.
These bad boys, if we may label them as such, are still lurking around ready to be hired or even settle scores. Their brazenness shows just how confident they are about the leverage upon which they hinge.
These are elements known by the law enforcement agents in the vicinity and who, when it becomes necessary, can be rounded up. Not so, however, because it all depends upon who their godfathers are.
Some Ghanaians fear that murders, which have political undertones, are surely going to be consigned to the dustbin of bad cases never to be pursued. Like the Agbogbloshie murders, they are surely going to reach a dead end.
But as constant as the Northern Star, such brazenness and impunity, as history has shown us, are short-lived awaiting the date when the players behind them will face the ruling of posterity.
It is as though criminal elements have been given the carte blanche to operate as they please, outside the law. We are ignoring these threats to security preferring, perhaps, to hide our heads in the sand as ostriches, in denial to our peril.
The impunity with which the dastardly act was carried out leaves much to be desired. A murder perpetrated in broad daylight by motorbike-riding persons, who are still eluding law enforcement agents, is not something we should gloss over.
It shows just how vulnerable we all are as a people in a polarised society in which selective enforcement of the law holds sway.
We demand that the law enforcement agents, who have the capacity to apprehend the culprits in the murder, do so without further delay. This should not be another Agbogbloshie.
We wish to counsel the PRO of the Ashanti Regional Police Command to be mindful about how he responds to questions regarding such subjects. His reference to one of the deceased persons as being on their wanted list, at this time, appears to give formal official support to the murder.
Such a remark suggests that, the Police might not be too enthused about delving into the case beyond useless rhetoric.
