The Member of Parliament for Akim Oda, Alexander Akwasi Acquah, has criticized President John Dramani Mahama's efforts in combating illegal mining (galamsey), describing his performance in this fight as abysmal. This comment comes amid ongoing controversies surrounding the campaign against illegal mining in the country.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2026, President Mahama acknowledged that galamsey involves individuals across political and traditional structures and warned that the fight against it would be challenging but necessary. He made these remarks during a meeting with Organised Labour at the Jubilee House.

In response, however, the Akim Oda lawmaker accused President Mahama of merely deceiving the Ghanaian public. He argued that the President was already aware that officials and appointees within his own government were involved in galamsey, yet had failed to take any meaningful action to address the problem.

“After coming into office, the president should have acted decisively, but he simply did not care, even when there was evidence showing that some NDC members and officials were involved in galamsey. The president already knows that his own people were engaged in galamsey, and to claim he has just become aware of it is the highest level of hypocrisy,” Hon. Alexander Akwasi Acquah said during an interview with Angel TV.

Additionally, Mr. Acquah criticized President Mahama's directive to expand recruitment for Ghana’s security services from 5,000 to 10,000 within the first year, describing the move as “settings,” implying it was superficial and lacked genuine commitment.

According to Hon. Akwasi Acquah, the recruitment process and its associated measures were budgeted for a certain number of people. Thus, the sudden doubling of the figures appears to be an attempt by the President to make a statement aimed at ending the noise and controversy surrounding the process.
“What budget will they use to accommodate the 10,000 recruits? The president made those remarks just to calm the people down. If they truly believed they could handle that number, why did they reduce it initially?” he fired.