Burning galamsey equipment senseless – Alan Kyerematen

Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, the Presidential Candidate for the Alliance for Revolutionary Change, has unveiled a comprehensive plan to address the issue of illegal mining, commonly known as galamsey, with a focus on demobilising equipment used in the practice.

Criticising the current government’s approach of seizing and burning excavators, Kyerematen called the method “ineffective and nonsensical.”

He argued that burning equipment fails to provide a long-term solution and, instead, proposed involving the military in a more systematic and sustainable demobilisation of mining machinery.

This initiative is part of his 10-point blueprint to tackle galamsey, which also includes a one-year nationwide ban on all small-scale and community mining activities to allow for better regulation and restoration of the environment.

Kyerematen made these remarks during the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) encounter held on October 1, 2024.

“Demobilisation of all machinery and equipment that are currently used in small-scale and community mining. Under the supervision of the military, if you demobilise equipment, you need to do three things- first, you need to keep them under inventory, two, you need to have them properly stored and three, you preserve them.

“This practice of burning equipment doesn’t make any sense. And that is why the GRP is proposing that you demobilise, and inventorise them so that you know what you have. Otherwise, after one year, they will be out of use.”