Former presidential staffer, Charles Cromwell Nanabanyin Onuawonto Bissue, says President John Mahama’s government is simply rebranding anti-galamsey measures that were already introduced under the previous Akufo-Addo administration.
During his submission on Inside Pages on Metro TV on Saturday, October 4, 2025, Charles Bissue said while President Mahama’s recent meeting with civil society organisations (CSOs) on illegal mining was “useful,” the substance of the government’s plans is not new.
“The same things that were done under the Akufo-Addo government are being repeated and renamed,” he said. “That’s where the problem is because it’s about consistency.”
He explained that between 2017 and 2020, the Akufo-Addo administration had already drawn up a detailed roadmap to regulate small-scale mining and eliminate illegal operations. That plan, he said, included the use of drones for monitoring, geofencing of excavators, and the creation of a centralised licensing process to eliminate bureaucratic delays.
“All these fine things I’ve said were actually outlined under the Akufo-Addo government,” Bissue told host Moro Awudu.
“So I would have wished that they could have come in and said, ‘Okay, you put out these things, but you didn’t do them properly, so we are going to deepen them.’”
The former secretary to the now-defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) argued that instead of acknowledging and improving on previous frameworks, every new government starts over and brands the same ideas as fresh policy, a cycle he believes undermines progress in the galamsey fight.
“We’ve taken Ghana for granted for too long,” he said. “Everything we’re doing is not rocket science. We just need to follow the structures that already exist.”
He maintained that Ghana’s fight against illegal mining has been plagued by a lack of continuity, where politics often overshadows technical expertise.
“When you change government, you don’t throw away what’s working,” he said. “You build on it. But what we keep doing is discarding and renaming, and that’s why we’re not winning this fight.”
Despite his criticism, Bissue described the President’s meeting with CSOs as a “good move” because engagement and dialogue remain important. However, he said the success of such initiatives depends on what happens next.
“The meeting was very useful you need to engage people,” he said.
“But we must instil discipline and be honest with ourselves.”
Charles Bissue urged the government to focus on implementation rather than rhetoric and said both the ruling and opposition parties must unite around a consistent, national approach.
“The galamsey fight shouldn’t be politicised,” he cautioned. “The water we drink doesn’t know NPP or NDC. Every Ghanaian must come on board.”
Source: metrotvonline.com
