The senior presidential advisor, Yaw Osafo Maafo, has placed partial responsibility on traditional leaders for the escalating pollution of the country’s river bodies due to illegal mining activities.
Osafo Maafo expressed his dismay at the fact that some chiefs in regions where illegal mining, commonly referred to as “galamsey,” occurs, provide their lands to these miners. Subsequently, these miners pollute the water bodies to an extent that purification becomes an insurmountable challenge.
These remarks were made by Yaw Osafo Maafo during his address at the 23rd General Meeting of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, held in Kwahu Abetifi in the Eastern Region.
“Look at what galamsey is doing to the land, and should we allow monies that a few people want to make to destroy the very base of water that we need to drink? There are areas where you cannot even purify the water and where you can, we are spending more than three times what we used to spend in purification and all this is happening in the direct face of our chiefs that gave the land for the galamsey.”
In addition to his concerns about environmental issues, he also voiced apprehension about the growing problem of corruption in Ghana, despite the country’s substantial Christian population.
“If 72 percent of us are Christians and corruption begins to grow from bad to worse, then there is something wrong with even the message that we give to this 72 percent of the population. We need to do some retrospection and as a country, together with the government, take certain actions to redeem the country from corruption and can’t just keep talking about corruption without doing anything about it.”
Ghanapublisher.com
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