I wish deployment of military to combat galamsey will be consistent – Cwesi Oteng

Gospel musician Cwesi Oteng has suggested that measures put in place to help solve the galamsey situation should be intensified.

He said in an interview on Joy FM’s Showbiz A-Z that he was surprised the illegal miners could carry out their activities without getting apprehended.

“It’s like the system has closed its mind to the situation. Perhaps some of the wealthy [people ] that do these things also support government. I don’t know how the forces of the land have not taken action,” he told the host Kwame Dadzie.

Cwesi intimated that even though the military has been deployed to some mining sites to help check the situation, he hopes it does not become a nine day wonder.

“Currently I have seen that the soldiers are trying to clear people from the water bodies. I wish that can be consistent on a daily basis. Not like a one week something because as for the water it is changing and eventually it will reach us all,” he said.

This comes a few weeks after the conversation about illegal mining got re-ignited by protests and marches by some groups.

On the back of the suspended strike by Organised Labour, the President, Nana Akufo-Addo has resolved to deploy additional military personnel to beef up the fight against galamsey, to suspend mining in forest reserves, to strengthen the prosecution of illegal mining cases and has called for a national pact on illegal mining.