Presidential Candidate: "I will shift Galamsey people into industrial hemp cultivation as an alternative livelihood."

George Twum-Barimah-Adu, an independent presidential candidate, has said that if elected president of Ghana, he will relocate the galamseyers from hazardous illegal mining to Indian hemp farming in order to give them a sustainable alternative source of income.

According to George Twum-Barimah-Adu, he met some galamsey workers in the Western Region, and they informed him that they would quit the job if they were promised Y amount of money each month because they knew it was dangerous and killing them.

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In a 3FM Urban Blend interview, he clarified to Blakk Rasta that he would shift the galamseyers from illicit mining to industrial hemp farming since Southern African nations have effectively shifted their youth from tobacco farming to industrial hemp farming, which is profitable for them.

“From studies, industrial hemp is used for medicine and so many things. I will legalize it, but I won’t legalize marijuana,” he clarified. “When people are hungry, they will do anything and everything to make money. So first and foremost, we have to tackle it from the point where we get the people something to do that will make them earn good income,” he proposed.

"We have to pause till we get it right, but as for the water bodies, that must be stopped and ended with all the necessary force that we need to use," he continued.

"We cannot kill ourselves to become rich," George said. That makes no sense, therefore, even if it takes years, we must stop until we get it right. We should leave the gold and everything else in place until we all decide to mine responsibly, as people have done for millennia without damaging forests or bodies of water.

He maintained that political partisanship is the reason Ghana has not been able to effectively combat the galamsey threat.

“So you see this galamsey that everybody is talking about, one party will say because they will lose votes, they don’t want to say anything about it. That is the problem with the political party system,” he concluded.