Retired security analyst Colonel Festus Aboagye has bemoaned the lack of political will in Ghana’s fight against illegal mining, suggesting that the problem persists because those tasked with enforcing the law are themselves compromised.
Speaking on The KeyPoints with Alfred Ocansey, Col. Aboagye pointed to a widespread culture of protection and silence within the political class and security services.
“The Minister currently, he has said several times, ‘I will name and shame.’ Before him, people made pronouncements—‘we will name and shame.
Till today, nobody has named anybody and shamed anybody because the persons involved belong to all the political sides and across the spectrum of our society,” he said.
He emphasized that the failure to confront the crisis is not just about inaction, but about complicity at the highest levels of power. “The police are not the only ones who may have been involved in galamsey. They were part of a system. Call it the regional security system,” he explained.
In his assessment, the political and institutional entanglement makes it almost impossible to hold individuals accountable.
“The state will have the intelligence, but the state could not hold them to account because ministers were involved. Party officials were involved. So you couldn’t go and single out police alone.”
Col. Aboagye’s comments paint a grim picture of Ghana’s fight against galamsey, one in which meaningful progress seems unlikely unless the web of mutual protection among officials is broken.
