{"id":93929,"date":"2025-09-13T13:37:47","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93929"},"modified":"2025-09-13T13:37:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:37:47","slug":"galamsey-fight-cleaning-up-the-menace-is-a-process-not-a-one-time-event-forestry-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93929","title":{"rendered":"Galamsey fight: Cleaning up the menace is a process, not a one-time event \u2013 Forestry Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Elikem Kotoko, has said that overcoming illegal mining cannot be achieved overnight, but the fight must be seen as a gradual process.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Prime Insight <\/strong>on Joy Prime on Saturday, September 13, he explained that tackling the menace requires consistency and patience.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI must admit, and I think many would agree with me, that the process of cleaning up and all of this is not just an event. It is a process because you would have to do A first before you move to B, go to C and finally arrive at Z. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut you cannot think that because we want to arrive at Z, we start from A and suddenly jump to Z and then declare to the people of Ghana that we have successfully done that,\u201d Mr Kotoko said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He called for collective concern over the fight against illegal mining, pointing to the environmental and health dangers it poses.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEverybody needs to be very concerned about the battle against illegal mining. The President has demonstrated that he wants to make sure this challenge is resolved once and for all. In one way, there must be a starting point, and I have a saying that you must start from where you stand,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Mr Kotoko also warned that pollution of water bodies was not only an environmental issue but also a public health threat, linking it to kidney disease and other complications.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf we do not confront these things, there\u2019s an existential threat to us all, not only me but also the young ones. Whilst our water bodies get polluted, it has a lot of effect on us, the kidney situation that was raised, and other health challenges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to him, President John Mahama has shown strong political will to address the problem and is backing words with action.<\/p>\n

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\u201cPresident Mahama has not only demonstrated the political will, but he is actually walking the talk. In the past, it was so prevalent that people pointed fingers at strong political stalwarts who were neck-deep in these activities. <\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Mahama has made it clear consistently that any officer, appointee, or person, even within his party, who is found or alleged to be involved will be given up,\u201d Mr Kotoko stated.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GalamseyDeputy Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Elikem Kotoku, has said that efforts to deal with illegal mining cannot be achieved overnight but must be seen as a gradual process.<\/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":[4131,442,1883,8474,10,9,8475],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forestry-commission","category-galamsey-fight","category-national","category-one-time-event","category-politics","category-popular","category-process"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93929","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=93929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}