On Tuesday, October 1, organized labor will convene to vote on a planned nationwide protest over the government’s lack of action in the fight against galamsey, or illegal mining.
In the event that the president did not issue a proclamation of emergency in response to the ongoing devastation of rivers and forest reserves by illegal miners, a number of groups and unions had indicated that they would stage protests before the end of September.
The General Secretary of the Ghana Mine Workers Union, an organization under the Trades Union Congress, Abdul Moomin Gbana, said in an interview with Citi News on Sunday, September 29, that Tuesday’s meeting will decide how their planned demonstration will go.
“The leadership of Organized Labour, after the notice that we sent and the demands that we put forward, we have agreed that we will meet hopefully on Tuesday, the 1st of October, to review all that has happened over the period and then consolidate our position on the way forward.
“I don’t think that organised labour in any way will deviate from our original plan. Our original plan holds. Hopefully, on Tuesday, I want to believe that it will be an endorsement of the plan that we put forward and, indeed, the demands that we have made on the president.”
Mr Moomin Gbana also chastised President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for failing to give a public comment during his address at the GJA awards night on Saturday, September 28.
“It is clear that the President is either overwhelmed with the whole illegal mining menace, It is either he is giving up on the fight, or he simply wants to tell the Ghanaian people that we cannot call the bluff on him. And it is one of the three and that is why Organised Labour is not relenting on this fight.”
