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The Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper has called on the State to handle the galamsey menace within the context of an overview of mining in Ghana. “Let us do a complete cost-benefit analysis of the mining sector and draw conclusions to see if it makes sense to get less than 5% of the revenue from gold mining.”

Galamsey, as the illegal mining menace is commonly called locally has been a headache to Ghana over many decades. The mining towns and communities sitting on gold deposits are the poorest in Ghana. In 2005, a report by the Institute of Social, Statistical and Economic Research, ISSER revealed that “the closer you get to mining communities, the more visible poverty is.”

Despite calls, threats and the issuance of ultimatums by State officials including Presidents, the nation wrecking and destructive activities of mining illegally with all the attendant pollution remain with us.

Mr Pratt made these suggestions as a contributor to Radio Gold's flagship programme "Alhaji and Alhaji" last Saturday in Accra.

Mining has been a part of our history for well over a century. No wonder we were called 'gold coast' upon the contact with the first westerners. Yet there is nothing to show for our endowment in gold in abundance. Worse of it is the telling cost of mining in Ghana.

Water bodies have been destroyed, land use is under persistent threat and our air is gravely polluted. A report by the Centre for Environmental Impact Analysis demonstrate how mining contributes to cancer and other fatal diseases.

Other contributors to the RadioGold talk show agreed with Mr Pratt that we need a holistic approach rather than a piecemeal or selectivism in dealing with the question of mining as a menace.

As Justice Atuguba once said, “Let us match the power of the State against’ (the illegal miners) ‘and see how strong they can be and how weak the State would be.”