Let's know what you’ll do differently – NPP to Mahama

The ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has challenged the flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Mahama to tell Ghanaians his alternative in the fight against illegal mining popularly known as galamsey.

Addressing the media on Wednesday, the Communications Director of the NPP, Yaw Buaben Asamoah, took on the former president for not commenting on very critical national issues but will rather comment on elections and the compilation of a new voters’ register.

According to him, the fight against illegal mining must be a multi-stakeholder discussion and not reduced to politics.He stressed that the efforts by the current government are yielding some positive results hence the need for everyone to get on board the fight against illegal mining.

“We are yet to hear candidate Mahama on the galamsey fight, what exactly is the NDC going to do about the galamsey, we don’t know, we don’t know…” Mr Buaben Asamoah said.The opposition NDC last week described the national campaign against illegal mining popularly known as ‘galamsey’ as coy to enrich members of the ruling party.

Addressing a news conference in Accra, National Communications Officer of the party Sammy Gyamfi said the recent discoveries of rot in the galamsey fight is a confirmation of the NDC’s suspicion over the years.

“In fact, this latest scandal is only a vindication of our long-held position that President Akufo-Addo’s so-called fight against ‘galamsey’ is ruse calculated to expropriate the illicit ‘galamsey’ trade for NPP government officials. It is now clear that there was no fight, it was a sham, it was all a ploy, it was all 419 for top government officials to take over the ‘galamsey’ business.

“This ‘galamsey’ scandal is a result of a grand scheme set up by the President himself to finance the NPP party. This is the reason why he populated the committees with top NPP officials like Ekwow Ewusu, Charles Bissue among others,” he said.