The President of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Professor Eric Abavare has suggested that civil disobedience is what is needed to win the fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.
Prof. Abavare bemoaned the lack of enforcement of Ghana’s mining laws in an interview with Citi News and suggested that if the current laws have failed, civil disobedience will do the magic.
He further warned that if action is not taken immediately, illegal miners could become an even greater threat to the country in the future.
“This call for me is not even banning, but I really call for civil disobedience. That is the only way we can salvage the situation because the laws don’t work anymore not that the laws are not good but I think the goodness of the law is its ability to solve the problem and so if the problem still persists, then it tells you that the laws are weak and inefficient and so one key thing is we need to scrap the law and I know many will disagree.
“But that is the only way because a key component of the law, which is the kings and the chiefs, who are supposed to be made culpable, I don’t know whether they are factored in there.
“And so the person [illegal miner] goes to the concession, he goes to the king, and then the rules are all in the concession. But the king, who is the mastermind, I don’t know how he is treated in there. And so we feel that for the laws to be effective and potent, the factors of the kings are crucial.”
