Blessed Godsbrain Smart popularly known as Captain Smart has revealed in a video on his regular morning show program that the ruling NDC Government’s executive members are the ones actively engaging in illegal mining.
The journalist has been an active critic of illegal mining in recent years. He also revealed that due to his vociferous criticism, he was arrested by the past NPP government five times.
Captain Smart also opined that if he were president, he would summon the military heads and sanction them to halt the illegal activity within a record time.
Mr Smart bemoaned the long term consequences of illegal mining activity on the country’s water bodies and cocoa production.
Impact on Cocoa Production
Illegal mining has caused catastrophic damage to Ghana’s cocoa-growing regions through widespread deforestation and land degradation. In the Adansi North District’s Dinkyiea community, once a principal cocoa producer, illegal miners have stripped away vegetation and topsoil, creating “deep scars on the earth” and leaving behind a landscape of water-filled mining pits and uneven, barren surfaces. The loss of vegetation cover has altered microclimatic conditions that were once favorable for cocoa cultivation, making the land unsuitable for farming
The scale of destruction is staggering – an estimated 19,000 hectares of cocoa farmland have been destroyed in key growing areas like the Western and Ashanti regions. This represents about 2% of Ghana’s total cocoa cultivation area, a percentage that continues to grow as more farmers sell or lose their land to miners.
Impact on Water Resources
Illegal miners use toxic chemicals like mercury, cyanide, arsenic, and lead to extract gold from soil and sediment. These substances have poisoned rivers and groundwater across mining regions. The Pra River, once clean enough to see fish and crocodiles, has been transformed into a “yellowish-brown body of water” so polluted that an artist could use it as paint.
Water Supply Crisis
The pollution has reached such levels that the Ghana Water Company reduced clean water supply by 75% in some regions last year. Experts warn that if current trends continue, Ghana could become a water-importing nation by 2030. Most Farmers in the Amansie West District have lost their only irrigation water source (the Akai Stream) to mining contamination, leaving them dependent on rainfall.
