Gold rush: Illegal mining takes sheen off Ghana's treasure

By Abdulwasiu Hassan

A pivotal scene in Ghanaian writer-director Blitz Bazawule's award-winning 2018 film, The Burial of Kojo, depicts a pair of brothers — Kojo and Kwabena — staring down the abyss of what appears to be an abandoned mine.

"How deep do you think it is?" asks Kojo, to which his brother replies that he has no idea.

Kwabena proceeds to push his sibling into the pit in a sudden, vengeful act that defines the plot as it unravels against the backdrop of illegal mining and its consequences in Africa's erstwhile Gold Coast.

Bazawule's use of magic realism to tell this compelling story may aspire to the gold standard of filmmaking, but all that glitters in Ghana now clearly isn't gold.

Illegal gold mining, "galamsey" in the local tongue, has had severe environmental, social, and economic impacts in this West African country of around 35 million people.

The scourge has intensified over the past decade despite regulation by government agencies and social condemnation of the practice.

Street protests by various organisations demanding a halt to illegal mining have now pitted activists against law-and-order agencies. Ghanaian police recently arrested 39 activists against illegal mining after a three-day protest in the capital city of Accra.

Those at the vanguard of the campaign say they won't relent till the government roots out illegal mining, which has caused loss of lives, undermined the country's economy, triggered conflicts over land, and damaged the environment through deforestation, soil erosion, and water contamination.

Another three-day protest from October 3 involving hundreds of placard-wielding Ghanaians accentuates the gravity of the problem.

Mining the economy

Ghana has been trying to ramp up legal gold production for years in a bid to revitalise its ailing economy. In 2023, it overtook South Africa to regain its position as Africa's leading gold producer.

"Our gold production has reached an unprecedented four million ounces (1,13,398 kg), according to preliminary reports," President Nana Akufo-Addo told parliament earlier this year.

"This is a result of the progressive policies we have been implementing, which have led to the revival of dormant mines like Obuasi and Bibiani, and the expansion of existing ones."

The President projected that Ghana's gold production would reach 4.5 million ounces annually once the new mines started operating.

But while the economy has been benefiting from the surge in gold production, the same can't be said of environmental and public health, say activists.

They blame the lure of easy money through illegal mining for increasing water contamination and a general increase in cases of renal failure and birth deformities.

Pollution overload

Turbidity, a measure of water clarity by assessing how much light can pass through it, has, in some cases, been recorded at an alarming 14,000 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Units). The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that drinking water ideally have a turbidity of less than 1 NTU before disinfection and never above 5 NTU.

In August, Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL) blamed rampant illegal mining for the erratic water supply in Cape Coast, pointing out that effluents polluted the river Pra.

"About 60% of the catchment capacity is silted as a result of illegal mining, compromising the quality of raw water. We are currently recording an average turbidity of 14,000 NTU instead of the 2,000 NTU for which adequate treatment is designed," GWCL said.

The company said high pollution had dragged down production to about a quarter of its capacity.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana has also warned that illegal mining could hamper drug production in the country.

"Illegal mining has devastated our water bodies, making it expensive for pharmaceutical companies to treat water for production purposes," the organisation's president told local media.

"If this environmental degradation continues, we may soon import water to support our local manufacturing industry."

Dropping cocoa yield

Cocoa production, a major foreign exchange earner for Ghana, has also declined due to illegal mining.

While pollution from illegal miners' activities is killing cocoa trees, some farmers are selling their farms to gold miners.

"Over the past five years, we have seen serious destruction on cocoa farms due to the activities of illegal miners," AFP quoted Michael Kwarteng, director of anti-illegal mining activities at the Ghana Cocoa Board, as saying.

Reports suggest 1,696 mining licenses have been issued in the past eight years, which activists say is causing an unprecedented and harmful gold rush.

Government crackdown

President Akufo-Addo recently set up a five-member ad hoc committee to assess the government's effort in combating galamsey.

Activists believe the government needs to do more to stop the menace. They want the President to declare a state of emergency regarding the pollution of the country's water bodies and get the military to clear all the buffers of illegal mines.

"We also have asked that any mining concessions in the forest reserves be revoked. The LI 2462 (legislation permitting mining in forest reserves) must also be repealed immediately," Kenneth Ashigbey, founder of the Media Coalition against Illegal Mining, told TRT Afrika.

Activists also want the two major political parties to openly declare their support for the war on illegal mining.

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