Accra, 17 September, 2024 / 6:12 pm (ACI Africa).
Members of the Knights and Ladies Auxiliary of St. John International (KSJI) in Ghana are supporting the call by the country’s Catholic Bishops on various stakeholders to urgently and decisively address illegal mining, commonly known as galamsey, in the West African nation.
In a September 11 statement, members of the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference (GCBC) expressed their concern over the pollution of key water bodies and the loss of agricultural land due to illegal mining activities, and called for a coordinated and collective effort to address the challenges of Galamsey.
KSJI members have expressed their support for the Catholic Bishops’ call in a September 12 statement in which they focus their attention on the Ghanaian government, urging it to “demonstrate” its ability to address the illegal mining challenge by “prosecuting defaulters” regardless of their political affiliations.
“The Knights of St. John International and Ladies’ Auxiliary join our Bishops in calling for immediate and decisive action from the government to put an end to galamsey,” they say.
The government of Ghana, KSJI members say, “should be firm in responding to this call and should demonstrate same by immediately prosecuting defaulters irrespective of which side of the political divide they belong.”
