About – Media Coalition Against Galamsey – Stop Galamsey – The Media Coalition Against Galamsey (MCAG)

The MCAG is made up of all media organisations in Ghana namely, private radio and television stations represented by the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), New Times Corporation (NTC), private newspapers represented by the Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), Ghana News Agency (GNA), Penplusbytes (New Media Hub) and the Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN).

In April 2017, with support from the Ministry of Information, the MCAG launched an anti-galamsey campaign, with the hash-tag #StopGalamsey in a shared fight aimed at putting an end to the menace of illegal mining activities (galamsey) in Ghana.

The focus of the campaign against illegal mining activities is not limited to gold exploitation but includes all mining offences committed under the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) based on the premise that the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, states that any mining activity that takes place without ratification by Parliament is illegal

Our Mission:

Advocate for the cessation of all illegal and unregulated mining activities (galamsey) throughout the country
Advocate for the imposition of a moratorium on issuing:
New small scale mining licenses
Surface mining leases or licenses
Advocate for the ban of all mining activities within a specified distance of identified water bodies and forest reserves
Advocate for the start of the cleaning of all polluted rivers
Advocate for the reclamation of degraded lands
Name, shame and push for prosecution of perpetuators

Red Band Campaign Against Galamsey & Signatures

For 5 months, the Red Friday campaign was carried out with participation throughout the country to serve as a rallying point for all Ghanaians to support the media in the #StopGalamsey campaign. It had mass participation with members stations and organisations championing the cause and sharing pictures of themselves wearing red with the hashtag #RedFriday and #StopGalamsey on social media.

The Signature campaign was done manually and digitally. Various organizations helped with the collection of the signatures with over 250,000 signatures manually collected.

The digital signatures are still being collected on https://www.change.org/p/president-nana-addodankwa-akufo-addo-parliament-judiciary-stopgalamsey-save-ghana-preserve-our-watersbodies-environment-act-now-stopgalamsey . To date 2,752 digital signatures have been collected.

Nationwide Town Hall Meetings:

These were carried out in collaboration with the National Commission for Civic Education in the identified eight (8) galamsey endemic regions of Ghana.

Our Operations

Our activities are not-for-profit and measurement of impact is non-financial.
However, we believe other institutions will realise the financial benefits of our activities. These include the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) who would be able to save much needed resources in the use of chemicals for the treatment of water and the Water Resources Institute of the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (WRI-CSIR). It has been reported that the smuggling of gold from illegal activities has reduced and which financial value organizations like the Minerals Commission can compute.
Unprecedented Ghanaian media unified around one national cause and pushing till change begins to happen.
An inclusive non-sectarian national campaign with all involved, where Ghanaians could see results, while being made aware of the fact that this was a war for the long run.

Achievements:

For the first time, the entire Ghanaian media took up a single national cause and pushed for change while actively participating in the project. The coverage was national in all regions even with those that did not have mining activities occurring in them (Greater Accra & Volta Regions).
It provided the platform and transmission for the executive and judiciary arms of government to take action.
For example; it resulted in the President taking up political courage by staking his political future to do what is right for Ghana.
The Chief Justice created 14 specialised courts to fight the menace. It also resulted in the formation of the Inter-Ministerial Committee against Illegal Mining, Operation Vanguard, and the Multisectoral Mining Integrated Project.
It resulted in the turbidity of water that had gone as high as 1800 NTU in Osino by the end of 2016, to decline to less than 200NTU in September 2017