The President of the small scale miners Association, Kojo Pepprah, has said that members of the Association have decided on which political party to vote for come the 2020 polls.
The leader of the group made the comment during an interview on AHOTOR (92.3) FM WEEKEND NEWS EXTRA, anchored by Nana Dogbe on 13/06/2020.
The decision on which party to vote for or against, comes on the wake of many failed promises by the Akufo led administration after the 2016 to regulate activities of galamseyers, and small scale miners when elected.
According to the Association, promises upon promises, attracted enormous supports by their over 16,000 members and more who assisted the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the heat of the electioneering season in both cash, logistics and in kind worth billions of Ghana cedis.
” there is no denying the fact that our members threw their weight behind stalwarts and Parliamentary candidates of the NPP with the objective of rewarding us if the win the elections in 2016, but sadly and unfortunately, this expectations were not met” he sighed!
Mr. Pepprah explain that government recent promise to establish what it termed as the COMMUNITY MINING PROGRAMME to act as an alternative mechanism in place of traditional mining have not been actualized, and noted that the concept snacks of verbal rhetorics which he avowed was meant to deceive disgruntled miners who are languishing in abject poverty due to the clampdown of galamsey operations.
President Akufo Addo announced the establishment of an inter ministerial taskforce against galamsey activities upon assumption of office to stem the indiscriminate abuse of the country’s water bodies which have become unwholesome due to unregulated Mining activities in the country between 2018/19.
What became known as operation Vanguard which is made up of a joint collaboration between the National Security outfit, Military personnel, as well as a special taskforce from the presidency were mandated to undertook the exercise.
However, critics of government averred government lost the fight since the inception of the exercise due to lack of political will.
President Nana Addo have been chastised experts and political opponents, for allowing for friends and cronies to engage in the activity despite placing ban on the menace.
Kojo Pepprah, emphasized that, their members have expressed regret and disappointment at government, for not being able to provide alternative livelihoods for persons who have lost their living bread and earnings in small scale mining due to government fiercely modalities on galamsey fight.
” we the small scale miners have decided on which party to vote for come this year’s elections ” he posited!
“my brother is it not shocking that a party who promised to cushion us if voted for suddenly come to post, and collapsed our businesses ” he queried!
I personally have a family and relations who depend on me, but today here I am, everything I had is gone and living have become very difficult. In fact am not in this alone, a chunk of my friends and workers are facing similar challenge “
Mr. Pepprah stressed that elections 2020 has been decided already by members of the Association, and in due time, they will publicly make known on which political party to support.
He alleged on AHOTOR FM (92.3) that most of the ceased gold, including excavators have gone missing, whereas are in the custody of party apparatchiks and surrogates in government.
Nana Dogbe / ahotoronline.com
