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By:Charles Ampong

The General Overseer of the Caravan of Prayer Outreach Ministry at Gyinyase in the Asokwa Municipality of Ashanti, Apostle Johnson Ackah Braimah, has maintained that the best solution to fight the illegal mining popularly known as ‘galamsey’ is for the government to focus her attention on land reclamation.He said, “Though the quest by the government on her recent claim to deploy security personnel at galamsey flashpoints at all times to fight the illegal mining is ‘somehow good’, that will not solve the issue.”

He explained that the illegal miners are very familiar with their galamsey sites, and any attempt to deploy “strange security men” who don’t know much about these sites would cripple their mission. He said the government should therefore introduce a special tax on galamsey and use the money accrued from it for land reclamation exercises.

According to Pastor Braimah, a lot of benefits could be derived from the land reclamation exercise to benefit both the current and future generations. He said currently all the galamsey sites are full of deep holes which are posing serious threats to innocent persons.

“Though I don’t support the extent to which our lands and water bodies are being destroyed as a result of galamsey, we must also consider the revenue and jobs the sector has created for national development and for the government to come out with plans and guidelines in order not to destroy our land and water resources.” He added.

He observed that the reclamation sites could be used to cultivate foods to benefit the whole nation.