Media Critical In Fighting Illegal Mining- Coalition

The Media Coalition Against Galamsey (MCAG), has made a clarion call on the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), not to undermine the role of the media in the fight against illegal mining.

According to them, the IMCIM had failed to exclusively engage the media in the roadmap towards the lifting of the ban on small-scale mining.

In a press statement issued yesterday, the group stressed that the road map without addressing critical concerns, seems to put the cart before the horse.

“The role of the media in educating and informing the public on issues of national concern cannot be overestimated. For such a road map, stakeholder engagement and communications strategy will be critical to the success of the project” the statement read

It continued: “we believe that if there had been extensive engagement with stakeholders including the media, MCAG…and other partners of the coalition which have been involved over the months in the StopGalamsey fight, we could have contributed to enriching the road map.”

The MCAG argue that the media’s actions in the past was what spurred government to take frantic steps on placing a ban on small-scale mining.

It could be recalled that an indefinite moratorium was put in place on April 1, 2017 to suspend artisanal and small-scale mining operations throughout the country.

The former Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr. Kenneth Ashigbey in a contribution, called on the media to place their scrutiny lenses on large-scale miners who may be involved in illegal activities.

“As the media we are not fighting small scale mining, we are fighting the illegality of it…if it’s illegal then it’s not only small-scale mining, there are some large-scale miners who are also engaged in illegal mining who are using the exploratory license that have been given to them to do illegal mining” he said

In spite of the criticisms raised, MCAG said they were happy that government had provided a blueprint.

BY: Abigail Karikari and Pamela Allotey