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He said the situation is sad but it is necessary in the fight against galamsey.
The Okyenhene said this when the Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources Cecilia Abena Dapaah and her entourage of experts and directors at the Ministry paid a courtesy call on him at the Ofori Panin Fie in Kyebi in the Eastern Region as part of her assessment tour of major river bodies and water treatment plants in the country.
According to the Overlord of Akyem Abuakwa, it is untenable for people to use unemployment as an excuse to engage in illegal mining to destroy the environment.
He maintained there are many alternative livelihood programs by government such as the Planting for food and jobs program.
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“The disciplined old cultures didn’t live by rule of law but lived by rule by nature. They were disciplined and respected nature therefore never destroyed water bodies. But this generation is bent on destroying the natural environment. When at all will galamsey be stopped?
“The excuse that people are engaging in illegal mining because there is no employment is untenable. Planting for Food and Jobs and other programs are some alternative livelihoods that the youth can take advantage of. It saddens me When I see excavators on Television being burnt but people are recalcitrant. If you leave it, they will return to site with it “.
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Okyenhene, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin II
Addressing the media, the minister expressed worry over the devastation of lands along the Birim river and the muddying of raw water supply by the illegal miners. She called on Ghanaians to support President Akufo-Addo’s fight against illegal mining to help protect water bodies in the country.
“We’ve seen the devastations of the land as well as the complete muddying of our water body called birim. The three places we’ve been to, the projects are all on the Birim river and as we all saw, Kyebi has the cleanest water source with a turbidity of 11NTU which is within the acceptable International unit. Then we came to Bunso, and you all heard from the manager there that when they took the sample in the morning the turbidity was 1900NTU then in the afternoon -mid-morning getting to the afternoon they took and it was 330NTU. From the explanation, they have given when we were asleep some people were working on the river body hence the deepening of the muddy and rising of the turbidity levels”, she said.