Why galamsey persist despite regulatory efforts and what can be done

By Mercedes Rowe ASAMANI

Illegal small-scale also known as galamsey has become a major environmental, health, security, and economic challenge in Ghana, necessitating the need for data-backed reforms amid regulatory failures. Experts state by Ghana could be importing water by 2030 should galamsey persist amid other grave consequences.

How do we move from solving issues from their root instead of mostly dwelling on the fruits of the problem?

Background    

The Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) sector employs about one million rural Ghanaians directly and several millions of livelihoods sustained from same. The sector also contributes significantly to government revenue generation and the provision of employment to rural folks. However, despite these economic impacts of the sector, the sector is riddled with galamsey. Not only does galamsey contribute to crime and violence in Ghana, but it also costs the state billions of dollars due to illicit trading. While galamsey activities previously utilized rudimentary tools in minerals extraction thereby minimizing environmental degradation, in recent times, activities have been more mechanized translating into greater environmental damage, security risks, and safety issues. This new practice of mechanized mining resulting in greater negative externalities has been attributed to Chinese miners and investors as well as some local elites. Also, the usage of harmful chemicals like mercury, cyanide, and lead in galamsey activities and their release into waterbodies, soils and the atmosphere which seeps into foodstuff, water, etc. have been linked several neurological disorders, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and congenital effects. Galamsey activities have also resulted in the loss of agricultural lands which threatens food security and international trade.

And yet, despite repeated crackdowns, policy reforms, and militarized operations, galamsey continues to thrive.

Why?

The dominant public narrative is often that Ghana is losing the war because enforcement is weak or because there not enough draconian laws, but Ghana is not short of policy interventions, neither has there been any studies into the motivations behind existing flaws in enforcement. Different governments have launched multiple enforcement and anti-galamsey programs, including Operation Vanguard, Operation Flush Out, Operation Halt I & II, and GalamStop, alongside alternative livelihood initiatives such as the National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme (NALEP).

I make a different argument: galamsey persists not because Ghana lacks regulatory effort, but because the incentive structure behind the delegated governance system rewards failure, selective enforcement, and protection networks. In other words, galamsey is sustained by how power and benefits are organized. To explain this, I use the Principal–Agent model, a framework widely used in economics and public administration to understand why policy implementation fails when interests are misaligned.

Answering The Whys: What and who sustains galamsey

Economists, since Adams Smith, attribute the market’s allure to the Invisible Hand: the assurance that social well-being can be promoted by merely permitting individuals to pursue their own interests, often facilitated by the price mechanism, which is motivated by self-interest to achieve efficient resource allocations given the conditions related to competition, externalities, and information. In recent times, the principal-agency theory has sparked a significant interest in the role of incentives that extends far beyond the price mechanism, examining incentives within government agencies, and in public administration to attain set policy outcomes. The principal-agent model is built on the following basic characteristics; a hierarchical superior (the principal) relies on an agent (through implementation) to achieve a particular result, and that both principal and agent are assumed to be rational and to act in ways consistent with their own best interests.

In the context of galamsey and why it persists, I find that beyond the relationship dynamics between principals and agents, there exist shadow principals. The formal principals comprise the central government, parliament, and citizens, who collectively mandate state institutions, i.e., agents like the EPA, Minerals Commission, Ghana Police Service, and the Military to regulate mineral extraction in the public interest. Beyond these formal principals are shadow principals like traditional rulers, politicians, galamsey financiers, and foreign investors particularly the Chinese who also influence agents in the exercise of their mandate, as well as exert influence over mining governance. This demonstrates that galamsey persists not solely due to regulatory failure, but that illegal mining is embedded within a mutually beneficial incentive structure that links political elites, state agents, and local actors. Principal-agent problems like asymmetric information, moral hazards, misaligned incentives, and weak monitoring therefore characterize the contractual relationship between Principals and Agents as a result of these dynamics, leading to current outcomes. Understanding these dynamics is essential for designing governance reforms that address not only formal regulation, but also the informal political economies sustaining extractive illegality.

Principal-Agent Problems That Explain the Persistence of Galamsey Despite Regulatory Efforts:

1. Information Asymmetry: Agents and shadow principals have greater knowledge of where illegal mining is happening, who is involved, payment flows & enforcement weaknesses than formal principals do. Illegal miners who can be classified as secondary agents have better understanding of the terrain than formal principals. Agents are also under resourced in reporting technologies. These lead to false reporting, public distrust of institutions, selective enforcement, and corruption.
2. Moral Hazard: While shadow principals like Politicians, traditional rulers, and agents promise to combat galamsey publicly, they benefit from bribes. Also, moral hazard constraints exist for formal principals, particularly the central government, to protect diplomatic ties particularly with China, while maintaining political capital. These result in institutionalized corruption, weak and selective enforcement, and normalized illegality.

• Misaligned Incentives: Local politicians gain votes and funds for campaigns from mining groups, security personnels and other agents gain monetary benefits through bribes, traditional rulers gain tributes, and unemployment youth gain income. These goals of maximizing personal comfort do not align with the state’s goal of banning illicit mining activities and environmental protection. These enable rent-seeking incentives, regulatory capture, and expansion of illegal mining zones.

1. Weak Monitoring and Enforcement Capacity: Not only are agents like the EPA, Minerals Commission, Ghana Police Force and the Military under-resourced in the discharge of their duties, there also exist political interference, and inconsistent prosecutions. These result in inefficient monitoring and regulations, legitimized impunity and repeat violations.

Way Forward:

Information asymmetry problems can be addressed by establishing a transparency architecture by publishing concession maps and monitoring data, establishing community reporting systems with whistleblower protection, open licensing records, the non-selective enforcement of the Right to Information (RTI), investment in monitoring technologies, and ensuring public updates addresses. Whereas, the problem of moral hazards can be addressed by establishing a joint Ghana-China Enforcement and Repatriation protocol and a regional resource governance protocol to utilize shared intelligence, joint sanctions, create galamsey financing tracking platforms, and a joint resource crime task force.

Also, in aligning incentives and collapsing the problem of informal authorities or shadow principals, there is the need to partner the media, religious bodies, traditional rules, academia, and civil society to deploy behavioural and normative tools in the form of environmental education campaigns to recondition and cause behavioural shifts. Stiffer penalties are also recommended to reduce expected payoffs for rent-seeking agents and shadow-principals, licensing reforms to lower entry barriers that currently make illegal activity rational, refocus existing livelihood policies on more sustainable options, and establish and roll out community development funds from mining revenue. There should also be significant investment in remote-sensing, and monitoring technologies as well as equip agents with the needed training to solve the problem of weak monitoring. These efforts ultimately build public trust, increase state legitimacy, create behavioural shifts that creates room for policy success, reconfigure incentives, accountability, and authority boundaries so formal principals, agents and shadow principals become part of enforcement and environmental protection, not part of the protection network for galamsey.

 

The author is a PhD Environmental and Energy Policy Candidate whose research sits at the intersection of climate change impacts, environmental and energy governance, and social vulnerability. She examines how policies and institutions shape climate, environment, and energy justice outcomes, especially for rural and low-income populations. She is also Climate and Energy Policy Professional with 8 years of experience and demonstrated success in policy development and analysis, sustainability research, stakeholder engagement, and program management across the U.S. and international contexts.

Email: [email protected]

Related Paper Publication:

Asamani, M. (2026). Uncovering the whys behind the prevalence of galamsey despite regulatory efforts; A principal-agent model analysis. Resources Policy, Volume 113, 105854,

ISSN 0301-4207, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2026.105854.

 

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