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Director of Communication for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Hon. Buaben Asamoah has questioned the temerity of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to comment on the issue of galamsey, without first apologising to Ghanaians for the lousy role they played in tackling the menace.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, the Adentan lawmaker demanded to know the measures the NDC put in place in the fight against galamsey apart from illegally seizing people’s properties.

“ . . they rather have to apologise to Ghanaians because this woman [Aisah] became queen of galamsey under the regime of former President John Dramani Mahama. They could not curb the galamsey; they seized people’s properties and the bottom line is that they could not handle the galamsey fight and the issue got out of hands,” he chided.

He stressed that the number of Chinese people involved in illegal mining and excavators import, increased in the country during the reign of the NDC.

According to him, many of the excavators imported into the country during the NDC regime did not go through DVLA checks, but rather moved from the ports straight to the forest to start mining.

" . . this Chinese woman Aisha walked as a free woman in the country under former President Mahama’s leadership when her illegal activities in the mining sector were known to the public," he alleged.

He therefore said the Akufo-Addo government has rather shown commitment in the fight against galamsey [illegal mining] as the Chinese kingpin who doubles as queen of galamsey, Aisha was deported under the NPP government.

He indicated that Osafo-Maafo’s comment over Aisha’s deportation has nothing to do with the direction of the fight against galamsey in the country.

Remphasizing on the government's committment to the fight, he said they had ban the importation of excavators into the country and secondly, conducting a reregistration exercise at DVLA in order to monitor the movement of excavators in the country.

“ . . one of the measures of controlling the activities of small scale miners is to employ the service of drones to monitor their activities in their catchment areas and a control centre where these trained drone pilots operate from, and if they notice illegalities, they alert the galamsey guards to step in to stop them,” he added.

He concluded that the galamsey menace did not start suddenly, as such the blame should be across board as everybody turned a blind eye to the menace when the galamsey seed was first planted in the country.