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Mr. Akwasi Duodu, a former Manhyia constituency organizer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti region also into large scale mining has challenged the president His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwah Akuffo Addo’s approach in the fight against illegal mining as paying lip service to the exercise.
Speaking exclusively to the Punch newspaper , he was of the view that, the deployment of the military like operation Vanguard and other security agencies to the fight against the menace was not enough, hence the need to revisit his notes by engaging mineral commission and other stakeholders into the mining industry to ensure that they share ideas in putting in place measures to win the fight collectively.
He stressed that, the fight against the illegal mining cost the president in the 2020 general elections, and for that matter, it’s long overdue for him to engage the state security and industry players in the mining sector, and cautioned him against following his predecessors former president John Agyekum Kufour, John Evans Atta Mills and John Dramani Mahama ways which did not see the light of the day.
Mr. Duodu was of the view that, no government can win the fight against illegal mining without the involvement of the stakeholders especially those in the mining sector being a small Scale or large scale mining.
He disclosed that, the Operation Vanguard been assigned to stop the illegal mining did not help the president’s vision in their operations and conducts he alleged that, that same military Vanguards turn their operations into a money making avenue just to enrich themselves to the detriment of the president determination to stop the illegal mining towards preserving the forest reserves and protect water bodies.
He disclosed that, most of the securities deployed to ensure the realization of the president vision were turned in to taken bribes from the illegal miners or when arrested and confiscate their equipments, they demand monies from them and show them the whereabouts of the equipments.
He underscored and stressed that, there is the need for the president to deploy more security agencies and in consultation with the miners themselves inputs resource them, adding that, there are some individuals in government and the party who are mastermind and spearheading such illegal mining which defeat the president ambition causing dearly in the 2020 general elections especially in the mining communities or areas.
Source: Ayisah Foster/Broadcastergh.com
