The Western Naval Command, in a joint swoop with the Second Infantry Battalion, has arrested 56 illegal miners at Kadadwen in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality.
The group consisting of 47 men and 9 women were handed over to the western Regional Police Command for further investigations.
The crackdown extended to Mpohor, where the illegal miners fled, leaving their operating equipment’s on site upon the team’s arrival.
The equipments retrieved include 25 changfang machines, excavators, with motorbikes burnt on site by the operation command.
The operation, led by Brigadier General Musa Whajah, is in line with the President John Dramani Mahama’s campaign against anti-illegal miners.
The miners were caught operating within the Norpalm Oil Plantation and the Ghana Rubber Company Ltd areas in the Ahanta West Municipality and the Mpohor District, according to a report by Channel One TV.
Earlier, President Mahama stated that the issue of galamsey was a major headache for all Ghanaians.
He said it was estimated that currently, about 1.8 million Ghanaians were involved in small-scale mining and that created a big issue with regard to issues of employment and displacement from small-scale mining.
He said the small-scale mining was legal and that the nation’s laws recognised it but it must be done in a responsible and sustainable manner.
The president said there were about 280 forest reserves in the country and that the ones which are affected by galamsey activities are about 43.
He said the government would soon organise a conference on the small-scale mining sector, adding that there was a new technology being used in other countries for sustainable small-scale mining.
“Before you start a small-scale mine, you must do what they call a leach dam and then you line it with plastic and then you wash the gold water into that dam.
“After you finish, and that’s what the big companies do, they have cleaning agents they put in the water and it takes out all the toxins and everything and you can discharge the water back into the environment,” he said.
He continued to say that “So, we’ll engage with them and bring some of these new technologies to their attention to these galamsey efforts.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
