The first Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu, says shooting illegal miners can be an effective way of dealing with the galamsey menace.
According to the Member of Parliament, if all tactics employed by the government have proven futile, the viable remedy to clamp down the canker is to be cruel.
The anti-galamsey task force, Operation Vanguard, in recent times, expressed disappointment about how the courts are dealing with illegal miners.
The Commander of the national anti-galamsey task force, Operation Vanguard, Colonel Michael Amoah-Ayisi said due to the slow pace of prosecution, many illegal miners and their financiers are more motivated than deterred to act with impunity.
Speaking to journalists, the commander stated that out of the 983 illegal miners arrested since Operation Vanguard commenced, only 95 people have appeared in Court, with the majority granted bail.
He added that because the arrested illegal miners have not been surcharged or punished severely, more natives are encouraged to revive galamsey activities, especially at night.
But speaking to a Starr FM reporter, first Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu stated that for recalcitrant people there must be a different way to deal with them other than the normal legal system.
“The other time I said we should shoot people and people were not happy with that. [But] I still think that the way to deal with recalcitrant people is not to use the regular law system,†he proposed.
Taking a swipe at some mining communities in Ghana as being responsible for the unending menace, he said “Many of them are complicit. They hide the perpetrators in the afternoon and they go in the night to go and destroy the water bodies.â€
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primenewsghana.com/Ghana News