Recent reports in sections of the Ghanaian media quoted Evangelist Collins Osei Kusi, the president of the small-scale gold miners association - who is said to have stated that banks owed by small-scale gold miners were apparently pressurising them to repay outstanding loans.
That particular statement, attributed to Evangelist Collins Osei Kusi, is part of a sophisticated campaign designed to win public sympathy for players in an industry that was notorious for non-compliance of sundry regulatory edicts, and was also a byword for impunity before President Akufo-Addo's assumption of office.
It is crucial that younger generation Ghanaians fully support President Akufo-Addo's determined fight to protect what is left of our nation's natural heritage. After all, is it not that particular demographic that will benefit the most from President Akufo-Addo's determination to protect Mother Nature, come what may?
Our forests and the important ecosystem services they render, constitute valuable natural capital that will ensure that today's younger generations, their children and their children's offspring, can also enjoy the manifold bounties of Mother Nature, especially at a time when global climate change will probably be having a devastating impact on all forms of life on the planet Earth, a decade or two hence.
By their many egregious misdeeds across the landmass of the Republic of Ghana over the years, small-scale gold miners have shown clearly that they don't care one jot about the effect of their mining operations on their fellow humans, and on the natural environment.
That is why society in turn, for common-good-reasons, must also ignore their selfish and totally unjustifiable demands to be allowed to resume destroying Ghana's natural capital for their private gain - at society's expense.
Let them look for new opportunities in other sectors of our national economy to exploit - such as purchasing and exporting sundry made-in-Ghana products.
More to the point, the authorities must ban the use of excavators by small-scale miners permanently, throughout Ghana. Deploying excavators in small-scale mining concessions does amount to mining on an industrial scale.
There is nothing small-scale about the devastation caused by those abominable mechanical-monstrosities.
Above all, a new law must be passed by Parliament - under a certificate of urgency - to make all the shareholders of small-scale gold mining companies that go beyond their concessions' 25-acre limit equally responsible for all such illegalities.
The new law ought to make it mandatory for them to be prosecuted and jailed, if found guilty, for a minimum of ten years with hard labour - and without the possibility of parole for convicts.
It is also vital that the media always accompany officials from the regulatory bodies who go to conduct on-site inspections in mining concessions - to ensure that the right thing is done at all material times.
Ghana's small-scale gold mining sector is an industry full of ruthless crooks who invariably use bribery and corruption to obtain their permits and licenses.
And were the Ghanaian media to investigate them, not a single small-scale gold mining company in this country would escape having its permits and concession withdrawn by the Minerals Commission. Yes, it is that bad on the ground, nationwide.
The question then is: Why allow such selfish crooks to destroy the remainder of our nation's natural heritage - when it could underpin an ecotourism industry that could earn Ghana tens of billions of dollars annually, create jobs galore nationwide for our younger generations, and generate wealth for local entrepreneurs that will remain in our country?
Finally, for those Ghanaians who are unaware of it, Thailand actually earned U.S.$72 billion from the 31 million visitors it hosted in 2016. What does Thailand have that our beautiful and friendly nation doesn't have too? Haaba.
We are not fools in this country. We must not allow lobbyists for the small-scale gold mining companies to trick us into allowing them to resume destroying the remainder of Ghana's priceless natural capital. Nothing can justify that. Period.
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