Ex-EPA Chief Blames Politics for Failed Galamsey Crackdown
Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu, a former Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has criticised President John Mahama’s early efforts to confront illegal small‑scale mining, popularly known as galamsey, saying the initiative did not succeed because it placed politicians rather than independent institutions at the helm of the campaign; speaking on Citi FM on December 17, he acknowledged that Mahama’s first term was notable for being the first time a sitting president tackled the galamsey problem directly but argued that the strategy adopted between 2012 and 2014 was fundamentally flawed due to the prominent involvement of political actors citing the Inter‑Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining as an example of an approach that yielded insufficient results and insisted that the experience highlights the need for future interventions to empower state agencies to lead enforcement and implementation without undue political interference if sustainable progress against galamsey is to be achieved.
