The Minister of Environment, Dr Zanetor Agyemang Rawlings, has told people who placed phone calls pleading for arrested illegal miners to be freed to stop.
She makes the point that illegal mining is destroying lives and the environment in general; hence, persons involved should be arrested and be made to face the full rigour of the law.
She said this while speaking during a climate forum on the theme Building Climate Security Resilience” organised by Media General in Accra on Tuesday, October 27.
The lawmaker for Klottey-Korle said, “Let’s stop phone calling to release those who we know are knowingly poisoning our waters. Enough is enough! If we catch people stealing, you hardly find people calling for them to be freed; why do we have people speaking for those who are destroying the environment?
“Let us all say no to galamsey; no one can place a phone call to free those arrested. I will not be the person to pick up phone calls to let.”
She added that “The gold will get finished at some point, and when it does, and our environment is destroyed, we will have nothing.
“We cannot eat gold. There are countries that are not exploiting all their resources because they understand the value of their environment.”
“As government of Ghana, we have to make sure we account for every single dollar spent on this project reason why it was taken back to the table,” she further stated.
