Franklin Cudjoe, president of the policy think tank IMANI Africa, delivered a sharp rebuke to the Mahama administration’s handling of Ghana’s illegal mining crisis, urging the government to shift from high-profile consultations to swift and concrete enforcement actions.
Mr. Cudjoe’s comments come ahead of a scheduled meeting on Friday, October 3, between President John Dramani Mahama and representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs) at Jubilee House. The meeting, billed as a strategy session on illegal small-scale mining—locally known as galamsey—has drawn criticism from the IMANI president, who questioned its practical value.
“Frankly, apart from esprit de corps—gathering for the sake of it—I don’t see the takeaway from this meeting,” Mr. Cudjoe said Tuesday during an interview on Citi FM’s Eyewitness News. “Maybe the President wants to hear from us directly. But this is a moment to confront the issue head-on and demand assurances for real action.”
President Mahama, who returned to power in January after a closely contested election, campaigned extensively on addressing the environmental and social toll of illegal mining, which has ravaged farmlands, polluted major rivers, and destabilized local communities. Yet Mr. Cudjoe signaled that rhetoric must now give way to results.
“The President campaigned on this for over a year—he knows the severity,” Mr. Cudjoe said, noting that the administration has so far resisted calls to declare a national emergency on the issue. “We need measures that secure the hotspots and ensure that only properly registered operators are allowed to mine. The rest should face the full force of the law.”
Galamsey, often involving unlicensed and environmentally destructive mining practices, remains a politically fraught issue. Successive governments have struggled to crack down on illegal operations without alienating local communities that depend on mining for livelihoods.
Describing Friday’s meeting as little more than a “meet and greet,” Mr. Cudjoe warned against vague commitments and called for strict accountability metrics, including timelines and key performance indicators (KPIs).
“We need to hold the President to account,” he said. “If we get to the end of the year and nothing has changed, it will be butubutu”—a colloquial term suggesting widespread dysfunction.
As the Mahama administration prepares to engage civil society in dialogue, pressure is mounting for it to demonstrate that its anti-galamsey strategy will amount to more than political theater.
