By, Savannah Pokuaah Duah
Leader of the People’s National Convention(PNC) Bernard Mornah attributes the surge in galamsey (illegal small-scale mining) to the government’s neglect of broader national challenges facing Ghanaians.
Speaking on GBC’s Current Agenda show on Saturday, September 13, 2025, Mornah stated, “Galamsey has been on the surge because of the government’s failure to attend to the many challenges that confront the people of our nation.”
Mornah cautioned against focusing solely on artisanal mining as the primary environmental threat, emphasizing other significant factors are at play. “We’re talking about mining as if it is the only thing that is devastating the environment,trees also act as a check for erosion and many other things, and wind. We cleared all those things,” he said, pointing to broader environmental management issues.
The PNC leader linked the prevalence of galamsey to deeper socio-economic problems like poverty and unemployment. “Why is poverty not a threat to our living? Why is unemployment not a threat to our living?” Mornah questioned, highlighting the desperation driving individuals into illegal mining.
He painted a picture of educated Ghanaians struggling to find jobs, burdened by student loans, and seeing few alternatives. “There are people with master’s degrees who cannot find any job,they have to survive,” he remarked.
Mornah criticized successive governments for policies he says have shrunk employment opportunities. “Government upon government, since the overthrow of Nkrumah, come to tell us in many forms, either they are downsizing, they are retrenching, they are cutting the size of government, and thereby reducing the employment opportunities for our people,” he said.
In his view, addressing galamsey requires tackling underlying issues like poverty and joblessness rather than solely focusing on the mining itself. “If you want to tackle holistically the issues confronting our environment, then artisanal mining is just a small part of it,” Mornah emphasized during the discussion on GBC’s Current Agenda show.
