WE HAVE NO WATER

Recently, I watched a five-minute snippet on how Ghana’s illegal gold mining has begun to wreak havoc on its rivers and lakes. Many of the waterways have been polluted heavily with toxic substances. Galamsey (gather them and sell), as Ghanaians affectionately call it, will have the nation begging for water by 2040 if things don’t get fixed ASAP.

Galamsey, the corruption of the phrase “gather them and sell” is done in haphazard ways on a small scale in order to make profit. The gold-producing regions of Ghana are concentrated between the Pra and Ofin rivers and it has supplied a good amount of it to the world. It’s indirect trade with the Middle East and Europe led to the start of laissez faire systems (A.K.A. capitalism).

Most of the residents there identify as Akan, a meta-ethnicity that was born out of gold trading with Muslim up north and Guans, the indigenous inhabitants. Most of the time, it is through blasting, dewatering and then mining the area or river. The machinery introduced by Chinese migrants used to mine has also assisted with the process with. The government has tried to step in and stop it but it’s not putting a dent into the problem.

There is a serious unemployment problem in Ghana among the youth, in which they cannot find jobs. This leads them to anything they can get to survive since they have families they have to feed. I would suspect no one wants to do galemsey because the chemicals they use are toxic and there are reports that the toxins have started to have long-term health effects on the populations near these rivers.

If there was one thing that the traditional Akan religions helped with, it was preserving the environment. Since a lot of our communities are near rivers, they were revered as sacred and that the spirit of the land lives in these rivers. They had various names they called it and traditionally made sure no one mined near these rivers because “bad things” could happen to you and your family. Obviously now, that’s kinda obsolete because of the introduction of Christianity and demonization of traditional aspects of religion but they had a point.

 You disrespect the environment and Mother Nature doesn’t play. The pollution has led to health problems and dead crops, especially the crop cocoa. Which in turn, leads to further unemployment and horrible economic aspects. 

An entrepreneurial spirit as well as a concern for the environment would do us as Africans plenty of good. The Ghanaian government has no time to waste; we are already heavy importers of products and produce nothing. Water can’t also be on the list. An instillment of self-sufficiency and healthy entrepreneurship could lead to jobs and new ideas and hopefully new knowledge on how to clean up the rivers. The north of Ghana and the Volta has the only clean waterways and that is due to the lack of mineral resources, a blessing in disguise. The ability to build good infrastructure and not harm our environmental livelihood is crucial in the years to come or we might end up subservient to foreign aid forever.