Private legal practitioner Martin Kpebu has urged Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) not to dismiss their engagement with President John Mahama on illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, as a mere “talk shop.”
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Friday, October 3, during a discussion on the President’s meeting with CSOs, Mr Kpebu described the dialogue as an important opportunity to press for concrete action.
“We will need even a number of multitudes beyond today’s meeting. In governance, participatory governance or democracy, this meeting to me is a masterstroke. Let the CSOs have an encounter with the President, then they can push in more,” he said.
He said he was surprised that some people were downplaying the importance of the meeting.
“So when I heard some of the CSO members saying, no, this is just a talk shop, it is not necessary, I was like really? You will need to see him and push him further. That is a golden opportunity to make a bigger pitch. So let nobody say that this is just a talk shop, no. It is actually baffling that this is just a talk shop,” he stressed.
Mr Kpebu added that he expects President Mahama to provide more clarity on the government’s anti-galamsey measures, possibly through NAIMOS or other designated officers.
“Apart from pushing the President further, what I expect is that he is going to detail officers, maybe beyond NAIMOS, or if it’s NAIMOS they will tell us. It gives us information about everything they are doing,” he explained.
He said that while the government is making some progress in addressing illegal mining, poor communication is creating a gap between action and public perception.
“My sense of the matter is that government is doing something reasonable, but because it is not being communicated fully, we are relying on old data to increase the advocacy,” he said.
On the role of advocacy, he cautioned against relying on unverified or weak scientific claims about galamsey effects, citing reports that linked galamsey to spontaneous abortions.
“Increasing the advocacy is good, but a part of the advocacy doesn’t sound scientific to me. About the research on the spontaneous abortions caused by galamsey, that’s not scientific, with all due respect. You will have to give us details. Correlation is not necessarily causation,” he said.
Meanwhile, President Mahama is expected to meet civil society organisations (CSOs) on the illegal mining (Galamsey) to find a lasting solution to the menace today, Friday, October 3, at 12:00 noon.
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