- The President of the Ghana Association of Banks, John Awuah, calls illegal mining an “existential threat” and condemns the national response as a failure.
- He strongly criticizes civil society for lacking credibility and shifting focus to less urgent issues instead of applying sustained pressure.
- Awuah questions the proliferation of government anti-galamsey task forces, labeling them political creations with no real intent to succeed.
- He warns that celebrating gold export revenues is a dangerous delusion while mining poisons communities and threatens public health.
The President of the Ghana Association of Banks, John Awuah, has issued a blistering critique of Ghana’s failed fight against illegal mining (galamsey), declaring it an “existential threat” that the nation is losing due to distraction and political gimmickry.
In a strongly-worded article, Awuah argued that the country lacks a credible civil society community capable of applying the sustained pressure needed to curb the environmental and health crisis. He accused CSOs of misplacing their energy, citing commentary on issues like the Kotoka International Airport name change while galamsey ravages communities.
“I know they will say they have made enough noise on GALAMSEY. Nope! It’s been empty noise full of political patronage,” Awuah wrote. He insisted that effective activism must achieve results, not just headlines: “An active CSO intervention achieves results; not press conferences.”
Awuah questioned the silence of influential national institutions, asking, “Where are the Peace Council, National House of Chiefs, National Development Planning Commission, Pastors, Imams and our Independent CSOs?” He singled out journalist Erastus Asare Donkor of The Multimedia Group—whom he commended—as a rare, consistent voice exposing the scale of the crisis.
The banking leader also took aim at national leadership for prioritizing gold revenue over public welfare. “What will increased Gold revenues do if half of the population is threatened with heightened chronic and acute diseases?” he asked pointedly, adding, “Will the growth in Dollars raise the DEAD?”
His sharpest condemnation was reserved for the government’s approach, which he described as a cycle of empty slogans and ineffective task forces. He listed numerous state interventions—from Operation Vanguard and Operation Halt to various ministerial committees—as symbols of waste and failure.
“I’m not sure there has been any national epidemic that has received this level of Complete Non-performance and a waste of the taxpayers’ money as we have done on GALAMSEY,” Awuah stated.
He concluded that these structures were never designed to succeed, but were merely “Political creations to send a message of attention to the phenomenon without real intent to achieve any positive outcome.”
