Eminent Ghanaian clergyman, His Eminence Cardinal Peter Appiah Turkson, has expressed deep concern over Ghana's inability to tackle the growing threat of illegal small-scale mining, known locally as galamsey.

During an interview on TV3’s The Big Issue, which aired on X on Sunday, October 13, 2024, Cardinal Turkson highlighted the severe damage galamsey has inflicted on the nation's environment, specifically its forests and water bodies, while also undermining the country’s economy.

As the Chancellor of both the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in the Vatican, the cardinal stressed that if the government continues to fail in halting illegal mining activities, Ghana risks straying from the founding principles of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and moving dangerously close to becoming a failed state.

His remarks resonate with the growing frustration among Ghanaians, as environmental degradation and the destruction of key water sources have increasingly threatened the livelihoods of local communities and the future sustainability of the country.

“If the status quo remains, we'll get to a stage, to put it bluntly, of a failed state. Because, I mean, we've depended on cocoa production. We are basically an economy that was based on mining and agriculture. Kwame Nkrumah, in his wisdom, asked miners to go down and get the minerals while leaving the surface for farming, so we could feed ourselves.

“That wisdom has been lost. We're not going down to get the minerals, and we’re not preserving the surface. We are taking the vegetation, removing the topsoil, and leaving potholes. His vision, according to me, was far more correct than the present or whatever,” he said.

He added, “If we continue this way, we’ll lose our vegetation in the era of climate change, which is something we cannot afford. We lose our topsoil, and food production becomes an issue.”