Page 44 - Apmor 2018

mining artisanal mining

Gold, Guns and China - Ghana’s

Fight to End Galamsey By Edward Burrows & Lucia Bird

undreds of thousands, including Illegal small-scale mining has long proliferated increasingly reporting it. TV and radio shows
many from China, are engaged in across Ghana, Africa’s second and the world’s have been inviting officials to explain their
Hillegal artisanal mining. How can the tenth largest gold exporter. But recent foreign plans to tackle the issue more frequently,
government stop it? investment coupled with industrialisation has and the topic dominates daily news bulletins.
significantly exacerbated its negative effects. Meanwhile, environmental groups recently
At the start of April this year, Ghana’s Many more people, including thousands from called on the government to impose a blanket
government issued a three-week China, have been drawn into the sector. The ban on all metal mining.
Information Minister recently claimed there
ultimatum to illegal gold miners are now 200,000 people engaged in galamsey, In contrast to governmental threats to
operating in the country. They were while other sources suggest nearly 3 million the galamsey sector in the past, the new
told that they could either stop rely on it for their livelihoods. administration seems to be directing significant
time and resources towards tackling the issue.
their activities or face prosecution. But to what end?
Locally, the practice contributes China’s gold seekers
The threat seemed to work. By the end of to surges in crime and violence.
the three weeks, over 500 excavators used in Traditionally, small-scale gold mining in Ghana
informal artisanal gold mining - known locally Nationally, it represents huge sums has been carried out by locals on their own land
as “galamsey” - had reportedly been voluntarily in lost revenue and exports. using hand-operated tools. These methods
removed from mining sites. have slowly modernised and expanded, but the
recent influx of foreign - predominantly Chinese
This ultimatum was part of President Nana - miners has accelerated this development.
Akufo-Addo’s promise to eradicate the In its electoral campaign, the NPP pledged to This is despite the fact Ghanaian law prohibits
problem of galamsey “once and for all”. The curb galamsey. And since coming to power, small-scale mining by non-citizens.
previous month, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), various media campaigns have ensured the Chinese actors have invested substantial funds
which came to power in January, had launched new government keeps to its word. into mining, introduced more sophisticated
a five-year project to provide illegal miners While the practice may have once been technologies, and employed significant
with alternative livelihoods in the legal mining tolerated or ignored, local populations are numbers of Chinese migrant workers as well
sector.

44 | AFRICAN POWER Mining & Oil Review Vol 21, Issue 20, 2017