The Minister of Lands and Natural Resource Designate, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah has suggested the formation of water guards in a move to help deal with the illegal mining menace in the country.
Illegal small-scale mining in Ghana is destroying the environment, making people ill, adding to water scarcity and damaging farmlands and crops such as cocoa.
Civil society groups have since called on President John Mahama to declare a state of emergency in addressing the menace.
Appearing before the Appointment Committee on Monday ( 27 January), Armah-Kofi Buah said addressing the illegal mining menace must be an all hands on deck approach, adding that new ideas must be generated to deal with the issue.
”So we have to think about new ideas. Some of the ideas are so, you know we have forest guards. what about water guards?
”So these ideas are going to be thought through and we are going to come out with creative ideas to make sure that these matters that goes to the survival survivor. And these are very important. For example, I was thinking about the creation of water guards.”
”Who are going to be trained to understand that this is not some security job they are going to do, that they are going to fight for the soul of our country. That’s our water bodies. So these are very important, but we are going to do that and really make sure that we address this comprehensively,” he said.
Watch the vetting in the attached video below:
