The Progressive People's Party (PPP) has called on Organised Labour to ignore the calls by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to grant him more time to address the illegal mining (galamsey) menace in the country.
According to the party in a statement issued on Monday, "This President has been in power for close to eight years and failed in tackling the illegal mining.
His calls are only directed at getting more time for his party members to continue to perpetuate this and other heinous crimes against the people." It therefore supported unequivocally the declaration of a nationwide strike by Organised Labour to compel the government to declare a State of Emergency to tackle the menace of galamsey. "The party is also in full support of the demands made by the TUC for the government to ban all forms of illegal small-scale mining in our water bodies, forest reserves and within any part of Ghana." "We consider galamsey as the single most existential threat to the Republic of Ghana.
The galamseyers are engaged in biological warfare against the State of Ghana, and their use of mercury and other heavy-metal pollutants constitute a deployment of weapons of mass destruction against the nation-state and its people," it stated.