{"id":93708,"date":"2025-09-12T04:51:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T04:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93708"},"modified":"2025-09-12T04:51:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T04:51:00","slug":"galamsey-gold-dependence-ties-mahamas-hands-on-state-of-emergency-akwasi-konadu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93708","title":{"rendered":"Galamsey: Gold dependence ties Mahama\u2019s hands on state of emergency \u2013 Akwasi Konadu"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament\u2019s Lands and Natural Resources Committee, Akwasi Konadu, has claimed President John Mahama is unable to declare a state of emergency on illegal mining because Ghana\u2019s economy is overly reliant on gold revenue.<\/p>\n

At his media encounter in Accra on Wednesday, 10 September, President Mahama ruled out any immediate move to impose such a measure, stressing that a declaration of emergency must remain a last resort.<\/p>\n

Reacting in an interview on Citi FM the following day, Thursday, September 11, Mr Konadu said the President\u2019s remarks only reinforced the view that his government lacks the political will to confront the menace of galamsey.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo declare a state of emergency does not necessarily mean putting soldiers on the streets to open fire on people, as we have witnessed in places like Manso Tontokrom where assembly members and residents have been shot. Rather, it means imposing a complete stop to illegal mining.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President\u2019s response was shameful, and it makes me believe he will never take that step,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Konadu further argued that the President\u2019s own words exposed the real reason for his reluctance.<\/p>\n

He maintained that Mr Mahama has effectively admitted that Ghana\u2019s economy is propped up by gold exports, which makes it politically impossible for him to clamp down decisively on illegal mining.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Galamsey:Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament\u2019s Lands and Natural Resources Committee, Akwasi Konadu, has claimed President John Mahama is unable to declare a state of emergency on illegal mining because Ghana\u2019s economy is overly reliant on gold revenue.<\/div>\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":[8387,196,1917,111,1883,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-akwasi-konadu","category-galamsey","category-hp-news-4","category-mahama","category-national","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93708","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=93708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}