{"id":120055,"date":"2026-05-26T07:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=120055"},"modified":"2026-05-26T07:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T07:30:27","slug":"ahantaman-bank-chief-calls-for-galamsey-state-of-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=120055","title":{"rendered":"Ahantaman Bank Chief Calls for Galamsey State of Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>2 Minute, 19 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
NewsGhana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, News Ghana, https:\/\/www.newsghana.com.gh\/ahantaman-bank-chief-calls-for-galamsey-state-of-emergency\/<\/p>\n

Ahantaman Community Bank\u2019s Board Chairman has called on government to declare a state of emergency on illegal mining, warning that continued destruction of the country\u2019s water bodies threatens national development and public health.<\/p>\n

Rt. Rev. Daniel De-Graft Brace made the call during a ceremony to present a water facility to the Western Regional office of the Ghana Education Service (GES), a donation that itself underscores the scale of the crisis his remarks addressed. The context was deliberate: a community institution providing clean water infrastructure precisely because natural water sources can no longer be relied upon in communities across the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost all our water bodies have been destroyed and polluted,\u201d Rt. Rev. Brace said.<\/p>\n

He argued that despite years of interventions and campaigns involving government, traditional rulers, religious bodies and the media, conditions in affected communities are not improving. He pointed to recent media reports on violent confrontations linked to illegal mining as evidence that the crisis is growing more complex rather than closer to resolution. The persistence of the problem, he said, demands a qualitatively different level of government response than what has been attempted so far.<\/p>\n

Rt. Rev. Brace went further than most critics, making a specific allegation about why enforcement has repeatedly failed to take hold. He said some traditional leaders and influential persons are directly complicit in illegal mining activities, and that their involvement makes it effectively impossible for authorities to apply the law consistently. Without naming individuals, he told his interviewer that the involvement of chiefs and politicians in galamsey operations is an open reality that enforcement agencies must confront before any campaign can succeed.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged the introduction of the Blue Water Guards programme as a step in the right direction but assessed its impact on the ground as limited, arguing that the level of destruction in affected communities appears unchanged or is worsening in some areas. He cited the Western, Western North, Eastern and Central regions specifically as zones where the crisis remains acute, placing the communities around Ahantaman Community Bank\u2019s operational area squarely within the worst-affected belt.<\/p>\n

Rt. Rev. Brace stopped short of prescribing the precise form an emergency declaration should take, but stressed that without one, collective efforts by all stakeholders would likely continue to fall short of the scale needed to reverse the damage. He closed with a call for stronger political will, stricter law enforcement and coordinated national action to protect Ghana\u2019s remaining natural resources for future generations.<\/p>\n

NewsGhana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, News Ghana, https:\/\/www.newsghana.com.gh\/ahantaman-bank-chief-calls-for-galamsey-state-of-emergency\/<\/p><\/div>\n

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NewsGhana, Latest Updates and Breaking News of Ghana, News Ghana, https:\/\/www.newsghana.com.gh\/ahantaman-bank-chief-calls-for-galamsey-state-of-emergency\/ Ahantaman Community Bank\u2019s Board Chairman has called on government to declare a state of emergency on illegal mining, warning… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18240,17955,196,18197,8608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ahantaman-community-bank","category-environmental-news","category-galamsey","category-ghana-mining","category-state-of-emergency"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}