Galamsey: Name, shame financiers – Convener – Media Coalition Against Galamsey
Convener for the Media Coalition Against Galamsey, Ken Ashigbey, has urged security agencies and journalists in the country to name and shame the financiers of illegal small scale mining (galamsey) as a way of curbing the menace. This he said was one of the objectives of the Coalition, to name and shame and push for prosecution by offering evidence to the State.
According to him, it is evident that the persons arrested at illegal mining sites are not the financiers of the scourge; hence, their arrest does little to discourage people from joining the galamsey trade.
It is believed that there are very influential and rich Ghanaians which might include people such as politicians, business moguls, media persons, religious leaders and traditional rulers etc. who inject huge sums of money into acquiring equipment and other logistics for the illegal miners due to the capital-intensive nature of the illicit act as well as the huge margins that they make.
It is on the back of this that Mr Ashigbey in an interview with Class News, appealed to the security agencies and journalists to expose the galamsey financiers as a way of rooting out the canker.
He said: “Most of the people we are arresting are not the main brains behind the trade, they are not the life blood to this thing…but what we need to do as journalists is that, if our intelligence agencies won’t do it, [we have] to be able to follow the trail of the money. We need to go to the areas where these monies are, [that is] the rural banks and the savings and loans companies. Let’s follow their loan portfolio and see who the people who are actually financing these operations are.
“We need to be able to expose these big people. Some of them might be politicians, some of them might be chiefs and some of them might be wealthy people in these areas. So as journalists, to be able to do that, you need to make sure that you have evidence that can stand the test of time in court and then we need to name and shame these people and push for these people to be prosecuted.”
Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com/91.3FM
http://www.classfmonline.com/1.11640838
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