Video Documentary Review

Reviewer:                       Mawutodzi   Abissath

Title:                                 Galamsey – The Real Price We Pay

Duration:                       30 Minutes

 Producer:                      Emmanuel Yuori

Some Foreign Galamsey Operators Destroying
Rivers in Ghana 

Do you remember the reaction of Apostle Thomas when he was told by his colleagues that the Master Jesus   appeared to them in a room without opening the door after resurrection? Most people who do not live in Ghana will behave like Thomas when they watch this video documentary about environmental criminality of   GALAMSEY.

Warning

GALAMSEY – The Price We Pay opens with a warning in accordance with cinematographic classification regulations thus:  “This documentary contains scenes that viewers may find DISTURBING. Viewer discretion is advised.”  This is professionalism in film production.

Garden of Eden

The documentary is structured in three main chapters chronologically:

Chapter one creatively and curiously takes the viewer through memory lanes of creation about five million years before Jesus was born. The screen play writer succeeded in projecting Ghana as the biblical Garden of Eden. But it was the narrator in the documentary who uses his deep-throat voice to transport the viewer into the Paradise itself.

 It was nostalgic to see and feel the originality of the   virgin rain forests of magnificent green vegetation.  And as demonstrated in the documentary, Ghana used to possess forests like the Garden of Eden where Adam and Even were located by the Creator. Aerial   view of the thick forest canopies was delightful to behold!

In those thick forests of natural beauty, timber trees of unimaginable proportion were in abundance.  Magnificent tributaries of rivers and stream crisscross one another culminating into one huge water body like the Volta River. Others like the Pra, Ankobra, Birim and Offinso rivers open their arms to other smaller rivers and carry them in unison into the mighty Atlantic Ocean. In fact, one can see all sorts of aquatic mammals like hippopotamus, charming and golden fishes some of which find their way into the cooking pots of our great –grand mothers. How beautiful is nature!

Among other dwellers of the fresh rivers was this   crocodile that could acrobatically catch a chicken thrown to it to the envy of a Black Stars goalkeeper like Robert Mensa of yesteryears. The documentary also shows how these rain forests play host to other wildlife species like the innocent antelopes and ever mischievous monkeys that snatch bananas and stuff them in their greedy jawbones.

Again, other agricultural biodiversity benefits of the forests which the documentary portrays are the cultivation of cash crops such as cocoa and oil palm plantations. One can see large tracks of these plantations with green and golden cocoa pods as well as millions of ripe orange fruits which are succulent to the eye in close shorts. In terms of food crops, the documentary projects particular bunch of plantain fingers that are as huge as baby tights. What a Ghana of heaven on earth!

 Galamsey Genocide

 Chapter two of the documentary focuses on the core issue at stake and   shows a sorry state of Ghana environmentally.  It is like the biblical hell of eternal fires. The scenes here are in shocking disparity of what the viewer saw in the first chapter.  

Again, the script writer employs rare artistic mastery in creative writing to evoke the emotions of the viewer where tears may be the result from the faint-hearted. And if this reviewer were granted the privilege to modify the title of the documentary, it would be something to this effect:  “Galamsey Genocide – The Environmental Criminality in Ghana.”

Reader, the documentary was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that galamsey operators in Ghana have committed an environmental genocide not only against humanity but against nature and the Creator Himself for which they ought to face the International Criminal Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands.

The biodiversity elements depicted in the first chapter ranging from the virgin forests with their dwellers from the tiniest ant to the largest mammal all vanished into tin air. The beautiful flowing fresh rivers water bodies created by God and preserved for millions of years for the benefit of present and future generations of Ghanaians   are completely extermited.

 This is the result of the diabolical handiwork of a few “greedy bastards” and selfish environmental criminals referred to as galamsey operators in Ghana. As was explained in the documentary by the Hon. Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, “Galamsey” is a corrupt English term for “gather them and sell.”  So because a few local selfish nation-wreckers and their evil-minded foreign cohorts want to gather gold dusts and sell humanity and biodiversity must be wiped out of the face of the earth?

Loss of Precious Souls

The documentary goes further to prove that apart from the devastating environment detrimental to sustainable development, precious human lives are being lost on regular basis through the devilish activities of these galamsey murderers in Ghana. One typical example depicted in the video was 16 precious souls that were lost in April 2013 at Offinso in the Ashanti Region.

It was known that people have been dying in galamsey pits in various parts of the country on daily basis. But that particular incident was a national tragedy.  The documentary captures very horrifying and most despicable scenes when the 16 lifeless bodies were laid in state ready for mass burials. And if you see how bereaved families including chiefs, queen-mothers , poor old women and men, orphan children who were deprived of their  loved ones and breadwinners were grieving in agony; the uncontrollable  sorrowful  wailing and weeping  were so  heart-wrecking that even if you’ve eaten a tortoise’s head , as the Ewes say, you would shed crocodile tears!

The documentary shows a footage of the funeral rite for that particular tragedy where Government officials including the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources was among the chief mourners. It was pathetic to say the least.

Galamsey operations might have be going on in this country for generations but the documentary demonstrates that when some foreigners introduced the use of modern excavation equipment that go right in the middle of rivers and dig deep down the belly of these rivers and water bodies completely poisoned and polluted thereby depriving communities the very sources of their drinking water and food production, Government could no longer afford to stand and stare any longer.

  That was the last straw that broke the back of the Carmel.  President John Dramani Mahama had to stand up and be countered. And his fearless decision to set up the Inter-ministerial Taskforce against illegal mining came into being. The success story of that committee is there in the documentary for the viewer to see.

The concluding chapter of the documentary deals with the solution and the way forward to the Galamsey problem in Ghana.

The purpose of this review is to render my only God-given national service by alerting my fellow compatriots about the existence of such a documentary in our midst. It is hoped that those who will watch GALAMSEY – THE PRICE WE PAY will give some credit to St. Thomas but not wait for Jesus to come and show him his wounds before believing. Galamsey is real in Ghana.

The author is Deputy Director and works with Information Services Dept. of the Ministry of Information and Media Relations in Accra, Ghana

Contact: abissath@gmail.com.