Economic Advisor at the Office of the Vice President, Professor Sharif Mahmud Khalid, has urged critics to be fair in their assessment of President Mahama’s approach to tackling illegal mining, popularly called galamsey.
Speaking on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday, he defended the government’s efforts and called for a more bipartisan stance in dealing with the issue.
He argued that the President has not been idle since assuming office, stressing that decisive steps have been taken to confront the menace.
“If the President were sitting idle and had never taken any step in the last nine months since assuming office, then… But here’s a case where he is putting prudent measures in place. You don’t take one decision and think that would be the end of it,” he stated.
Professor Khalid highlighted the recent wave of arrests as a key signal of the government’s determination to dismantle the illegal mining network.
“His promise was to go after the kingpins. But if you start with 1,400 arrests, you are snowballing towards the kingpins, because they are connected to the workers. These arrests are the first initiation that would snowball to the arrest of the kingpins,” he explained.
He further emphasized that some level of pragmatism is necessary in handling the situation, including offering conditional amnesty to those who cooperate with authorities.
“It is only prudent to say that if you can lead us to your boss, help us, we would give some amnesty to you.
“So let’s contextualise these things. If they are retrained and given artisanal skills, it helps to put them back into the economic chain,” he noted.
Calling for a collective front to sustain the fight, Professor Khalid cautioned against reducing the conversation to partisan politics.
“The government is doing a lot. We need to cut the President some slack. Let’s stop that gravy train of NDC and NPP, and try to put a bipartisan approach to this,” he added.
