The Technical Director of WACAM, Kwaku Afari, has attributed Ghana’s worsening environmental destruction and illegal mining crisis to the country’s mining laws, which he describes as overly “promotional” and skewed toward attracting foreign investment at the expense of environmental and community protection.
Afari argued that the legal framework itself has created the conditions for environmental degradation by granting excessive rights to mining companies.
“The law makes provision for mining companies to impound, convey and divert water from rivers and streams.
“So what we are seeing now, the destruction of our water bodies, is something we legally called for. The law itself gave room for such exploitation,” he said on the Asaase Breakfast Show.
He also highlighted the country’s weak regulatory capacity, pointing to the vast number of mining licences compared to limited oversight resources.
“We have over 7,000 mineral licenses in Ghana. How can the Minerals Commission with just about 50 offices regulate and monitor these activities?” he questioned.
Afari warned that by prioritising revenue over sustainability, the country is compounding the crisis rather than addressing it.
“We are making the situation worse by focusing only on revenue while ignoring the social and environmental costs,” he stressed.
