Why only we, not President Mahama, NPP, or NDC, can end the Galamsey tragedy

By Professor Douglas Boateng
Chartered Director (UK IoD) | Chartered Engineer (UK) | Governance and Industrialisation Advocate and Strategist

WHEN THE RIVER CRIES AND THE PEOPLE APPLAUD

Every administration has promised to end illegal mining. Each has collided with a deeper truth. Political will matters, but public virtue decides outcomes. Until citizens choose stewardship over shortcuts, no president can heal poisoned rivers, felled forests, or barren farms. The excavator did not drive itself to the riverbank. We did.

THE EFFORT OF PRESIDENTS AND THE BETRAYAL OF CITIZENS

Successive presidents have tried. President Kufuor tried. President Mills tried. President Mahama tried. President Akufo-Addo also tried and publicly stated that he would put his presidency on the line to end Galamsey. Now the baton returns to President Mahama. Each administration has made some progress through Operation Vanguard and other task forces, tighter regulation, and community education. Operation Vanguard arrested hundreds in its early months and destroyed illegal dredgers, which showed that the state can act when it chooses. Yet many steps forward have been erased by the greed of a few who see the nation’s veins as private pipelines. The painful truth is that this crisis is more a betrayal of citizenship than of government. Yes, the Government must do more, but a nation cannot outsource conscience. When communities celebrate those who profit from destruction, when silence greets wrongdoing, and when local power brokers collude, leadership becomes a lonely echo.

THE GOLD THAT COSTS MORE THAN IT SHINES

Gold was meant to be Ghana’s blessing, but has become a burden. Illegal mining drains over 2 billion USD annually through lost tax revenue, forest damage, and water pollution. The Water Resources Commission warns over 60% of rivers in mining zones are biologically dead. Rivers flow brown and toxic due to mercury, threatening aquatic life and communities. Treating polluted water costs millions monthly, burdening households. The forests suffer too. Illegal mining in Western and Ashanti regions has stripped large areas, endangering livestock and children. Ghana loses over 135,000 hectares of forest annually, much from small-scale mining. Cocoa, Ghana’s main export, suffers. The Ghana Cocoa Board reports the 2023-24 season below target, affected by illegal mining, disease, and weather. Fertile soils have turned to gravel and poison, leaving farmers with dust instead of harvests.

THE LAND THAT FED US IS NOW A STRANGER

Across the Western, Eastern, and Ashanti regions, many farmers can no longer till their own land. Mercury and cyanide have crept into the soil. In Atiwa, once lush valleys shimmer with pools of contaminated water where cocoa trees once stood tall. Women travel farther for clean water. Children fall ill from toxins they cannot name. The Food and Agriculture Organisation warns that Ghana’s arable land per capita has shrunk by more than half since 1960, driven by deforestation, erosion, and pollution. The land that once fed us is becoming a stranger. A country that kills its trees digs its own grave.

THE MORAL COST OF OUR SILENCE

Every polluted river is a moral wound. Every felled tree is a broken promise. Every destroyed farm is a debt to the unborn. The real crisis is not only political. It is moral paralysis dressed in party colours. We chant slogans, yet our silence sustains the rot. We debate which government failed, instead of asking why communities defend those who mine illegally. The problem is not only in the rivers. It is in the hearts that watch them die without protest. Yet not all is lost. Across the country, courage still flickers. In Akyem Sagyemanse, youth groups protested mining threats to the Atiwa Forest and refused to barter the future for quick profit. Civil society organisations such as A Rocha Ghana and Wacam continue to document polluted rivers and push for accountability. When the people take personal responsibility and collective responsibility, the nation heals.

WHAT HAS WORKED AND WHAT MUST CHANGE

Enforcement has brought short term relief through arrests, equipment seizures, and temporary calm. Enforcement alone cannot sustain victory. Without credible alternatives, miners relocate, adapt, and return. Ghana needs more than force. Ghana needs foresight.

1. Transparent local governance. Publish mining permits, beneficial owners, and community royalty flows in plain language. When communities see real value in legal activity and who benefits, tolerance for illegality declines.
2. Sustainable rural livelihoods. Many youth enter Galamsey for survival rather than greed. When cocoa prices fall or land degrades, illegal mining appears to be the only option. Create jobs in reclamation, riparian planting, feeder road maintenance, irrigation repair, and rural enterprise so that extraction gives way to restoration.
3. Protection of critical ecosystems. Headwaters and forest reserves, including Atiwa, should be permanently shielded. The value of a healthy watershed exceeds any short-term extraction.
4. Water security as national security. With about 60% of water bodies polluted, Ghana faces a looming water crisis. Treatment costs could multiply within a decade if illegal mining persists. Empower utilities and basin authorities to prosecute polluters and recover treatment costs.
5. Citizen technology for accountability. A simple platform for GPS-tagged reports and photos, visible to the public and Parliament, can expose illegal operations in real time and create reputational risk for those who look the other way.
6. Stronger agricultural resilience. Re-incentivise farming with fair and predictable pricing, access to credit and inputs, secure land tenure, extension support, and reliable off-take. When farming pays, Galamsey loses its lure.

THE GENERATIONAL COST

The most painful cost of Galamsey is generational. A child born today will inherit rivers that cannot sustain fish, farms that cannot feed, and forests that cannot breathe. The World Health Organisation warns that mercury exposure can damage children’s brains and kidneys, threatening long-term national productivity. When communities destroy their own ecosystems, they forfeit not only soil but also soul. Future generations will ask how we could have watched our own veins bleed gold and applauded.

A CITIZEN COMPACT FOR CLEAN RIVERS AND LIVING FORESTS

The state must lead, but the state cannot patrol every riverbank. Real transformation begins when citizens take ownership of the national conscience.

• Teach stewardship early. Every school should have a tree or river club with simple, practical restoration projects each term. Values, like forests, grow when planted early.
• Celebrate integrity. Honour the district officer who refused a bribe, the chief who protected a reserve, and the youth who said no to illegal miners. Let virtue trend.
• Do not buy tainted gold. If it cannot be traced, it should not be traded.
• Adopt a river. Communities can monitor nearby water bodies and report pollution. A river that is watched heals faster.

LESSONS FROM ELSEWHERE

Recovery is possible. Indonesia, once crippled by illegal logging, reduced deforestation by more than sixty per cent between 2016 and 2020 through community forest management, transparent monitoring, and firm enforcement. Rwanda increased forest cover from about ten per cent in 2008 to more than thirty per cent by 2023 through consistent policy, citizen engagement, and education. South Africa’s post apartheid water reforms placed citizens at the centre of catchment management and made clear that water security is both a right and a duty. If Ghana redefines mining governance around shared responsibility, rather than political blame, our rivers, forests, and lands can live again.

THE REAL INCONVENIENT TRUTH

We, the citizens, are both the victims and the villains. We decry pollution, then buy untraceable gold. We lament joblessness, then cheer those who profit illegally. We demand accountability from leaders, but rarely from ourselves. Illegal mining is not only a development issue. It is a mirror that reflects who we have become as a people. Until morality becomes as national as football, no policy will save us.

FINAL REFLECTION

History will not ask who governed. History will ask who guarded. It will not record which party won. It will record which generation cared. It will not remember our slogans. It will remember our rivers, our forests, and the farms our children inherit. We cannot drink gold. We cannot farm dust. We cannot continue to blame leaders for the sins of citizens. Conscience must return to the centre of national life. Every citizen carries a duty to the generations unborn. Every chief, pastor, imam, teacher, trader, miner, and public official carries a personal responsibility to protect the sources of life. Let this be our clarion call. Choose stewardship over shortcuts. Refuse tainted gold. Report the pits. Restore the riverbank. Plant the trees. Pay the price of integrity today so that our children do not pay the price of our neglect tomorrow. Every citizen is a drop of water. Together we can become a living river, strong enough to cleanse this national shame and to carry healed lands, rivers and forests into the hands of those yet to be born.