Dennis Miracles Aboagye, aide to former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has accused the National Democratic Congress (NDC) of frustrating the fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, during the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) administration.

Speaking during a visit to the Ayensu River following the shutdown of the Kwanyako Headworks due to galamsey pollution, Mr. Aboagye said the NDC’s conduct in opposition undermined efforts to clamp down on the menace.

“Galamsey is not politics. That is why all our time in government, I insisted that the NDC was charting a path to make galamsey political. I am of the view that the NDC’s posture and conduct in opposition, and how they publicly went into the galamsey areas and encouraged the miners, is one of the reasons why the NPP struggled to fight and win the galamsey fight,” he stated.

Mr. Aboagye added that evidence of progress was seen when former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo imposed a ban on galamsey in 2017.

“For two years, when the then president put a ban on galamsey, we saw evidence that the water bodies that were looking muddy before could be cleaned,” he said.

He appealed to President John Dramani Mahama and the current NDC government to take the fight seriously.

“We are appealing to the president and the NDC government. Our lives are at stake, and the future of this country is at stake,” Mr. Aboagye stressed.

Meanwhile, critics such as the President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Professor Eric K. K. Avabare, launched a scathing criticism of both the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), accusing them of failing Ghanaians in the fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.