My 'shoot-to-kill' galamsey comment was twisted – First Deputy Speaker

The First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joseph Osei Owusu has accused the National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi of twisting his infamous shoot-to-kill comment as a measure to deal with galamsey menace.

“I have heard that reckless young guy and so-called Communications Officer of NDC given a spin to what I said that if I have the power to change the law, person mining on our water bodies be shot and killed”, the lawmaker fumed in an interview monitored by MyNewsgh.com

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Bekwai who spoke on a local radio station in Kumasi, therefore, took a swipe at attacking the behaviour of Sammy Gyamfi.

“Anybody with good moral upbringing will never talk recklessly like the way he talks”, Joseph Osei Owusu said.

In 2018, the Hon. Osei Owusu was reported to have prescribed that the only viable way to clamp down on the menace is to be ruthless.

“The other time I said we should shoot people and people were not happy with that. [But] I still think that the way to deal with recalcitrant people is not to use the regular law system,” he proposed.

Blaming the communities for the unending menace, Mr Osei Owusu said, “Many of them are complicit. They hide the perpetrators in the afternoon and they go in the night to go and destroy the water bodies.”

His comments were in direct response to Operation Vanguard, unhappiness about what it said was the courts' leniency in dealing with illegal miners brought before them.