The Director of Communications for the United Party (UP), Solomon Owusu, is questioning why Ghana is retrogressing at a time when the literacy rate of the country is rather on the ascendancy.
His concerns stem from the increasing illegal mining (galamsey) menace in the country, which is destroying forest reserves and polluting water bodies.
This follows a revelation by the Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Professor Nana Ama Brown Klutse, that her outfit requires an estimated amount of US$35 million to completely clean up River Birim, which has been heavily polluted by illegal mining activities.
The River Birim, just like many other major rivers in the country, has suffered significant degradation in recent years due to illegal mining, which has severely affected water quality, disrupted aquatic ecosystems, and reduced access to safe water for surrounding communities.
After a pilot application of an ionic nano copper technology at Kyebi-Adukrom in the Eastern Region on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, Professor Klutse explained that while early results show visible improvement in treated sections of the river, scaling the intervention across the entire stretch will demand substantial funding.
According to her, it costs about US$200,000 to procure enough of the technology to clean one kilometre of a flowing river body, adding that the authority would need about $35 million to restore the river.
“It took us about $200,000 to procure an amount that will clean one kilometre of every flowing river body. Birim River is about 175 kilometres, so you can do the mathematics — we are talking about $35 million,” she said.
Reacting to the development, Solomon Owusu expressed the need to tackle galamsey head-on, indicating the ramifications does not know political colour.
“Death does not know political colour. When it strikes, it does not know whether you’re NPP, NDC,” he stated.
“But why must we in the 21st Century where we claim to be civilised, be destroying our water bodies as though we can’t do anything to stop it?” he said on the BigIssue segment on the NewDay morning show on Wednesday, February 25, 2026.
He questioned how Ghana’s environment was safe at a time when many people hadn’t acquired formal education, blaming the surge in galamsey activities on greed on the part of some people who wield political power.
“In those days that we didn’t have a lot of PhD holders in this country, our water bodies were clean. In those days that we claim that we had not brought the free SHS, that period a lot of people had not been to school, our water bodies were clean.
“When we were young, Tuesdays, you dare not enter into any forest or so. All these things were put in place to be reassuring the environment. We grew up and for the love of money underpinning all these…,” he explained.
Meanwhile, many have raised concerns over the amount being spent for the project, and have questioned the logic behind the initiative since the river can still be polluted right after it has been purified, if they don’t stop galamsey.
Eastern Region: NAIMOS arrests 3 Chinese in galamsey operation along River Birim
