Nana Kwame Bediako, Leader of the Newforce Movement says when given the nod as president, illegal miners will be re-established to work continually in the mining sector for the country.
The widespread illegal mining activities are destroying the rich forest as well as the water bodies of the country.
This has led to water shortages across most parts of the country, with the total land area destroyed estimated at 4,726 hectares and the government spending millions on solving the canker.
Speaking on how he will tackle illegal mining known as galamsey in the country, the presidential hopeful said he does not believe illegal miners must lose their jobs.
He however expressed his despisal with the engagement of the Chinese people in galamsey operations across the country.
He believes the Chinese people should work for the country rather than extracting mineral resources from Ghana and poisoning the water bodies.
“Well first of all I think that I would move all the Chinese out right away…To come into our country and poison all the water. I mean there are probably hundreds of thousands of them without us knowing” he continued.
Meanwhile, Nana Bediako said for Ghanaian galamseyers, he would formally recruit them in the country’s gold business while also ensuring the country’s water bodies are saved rather than destroyed.
Speaking exclusively to ATLFMNEWS he said “Ghanaians involved in Galamsey must be allowed to work and be paid for the country to have gold to build its reserves and that is what I will do… I will work with them. However, we will not allow them to pollute the water bodies. What we will do is to recycle the water used. For the gold, we do not intend to export but invest in the central bank for later loan lending.
Solving the Unemployment in Ghana
Nana Kwame Bediako mentioned that his vision towards unemployment is to industrialize the country to create jobs.
According to him, statistics from their research through his Listening Tour across the country indicate that about 63 to 69 per cent of issues are on unemployment.
He described unemployment in Ghana as a state emergency and believes regions in the country are powerful in wealth and attributable reserves and will leverage that to create equal job opportunities for all in Ghana.
“The regions are very powerful in terms of wealth. So, we’ve checked the western region for instance is 1.7 trillion, and you have about 28 billion in the Volta region. There are different numbers that we calculated and when we put everything together we’re talking of 4.7 trillion attributable reserves in the country. So, once we’re able to create a value and an industrial platform in every region automatically the jobs will be created for the people….”
He aims to ensure a 24-hour all-round working in the factories with eight hours in three shifts for workers.
“Eight hours times three is three shifts so if you employ 10,000 people automatically it has to be times three then you have 30,000 jobs. It could be one or two plants.
This is what we want to do in all the regions. Times it by 16, we’re looking at, at least increasing between 500 to 1.3 million jobs in the first two years or first three years if we’re able to put at least 32 plants in a country. As time goes on we are building a new economy for the nation.”
Tackling Corruption
Touching on Corruption, Nana Kwame Bediako emphasized the importance of identifying the root causes of corruption and how it permeates through the different levels of society.
To him, if corruption exists at the top it filters down to the middle and bottom ranks and to tackle it he believes in finding solutions rather than playing the blame game.
“I think what is important is, first of all, finding solutions to problems because that’s a step forward that makes people sit a little bit and then secondly planning of how you can add value to whatever existing product, minerals, human resources that you have for us to also take another step forward. I just believe in taking steps forward, forgetting what has happened in the past but learning from it”
Source: Aba Aikins&Flora Tang/ATLFMNEWS
