Five Burkina Faso nationals have been sentenced to 20 years in prison each for engaging in illegal mining activities in the Wa West district of the Upper West region of Ghana.
The arrest was on March 23 at an illegal mining site in Maase, in the Wa West District, following a tip-off received by police officers on patrol.
The miners sought to escape upon encountering the police, but they were promptly apprehended.
In their caution statement, the accused admitted to mining without a license, shedding light on their migration from Burkina Faso to Ghana due to adverse environmental conditions, particularly drought.
The court convicted the five individuals on two counts: conspiracy to commit a crime (mining without a license) and mining without a license as non-Ghanaians.
In an interview, Principal State Attorney Saeed Abdul Shakur said the accused were caught red-handed and could not refute their involvement in the illegal mining activities.
“The police conducted a swoop at the Black Volta close to Jamboso and arrested 5 persons, all of them were Burkinabé nationals. And they were actually mining close to the bank of the river, somewhere even mining inside the river. They were arrested and arraigned before the circuit court, and remanded in the presence of police custody.
“In the Mining Act, the minimum you can give any foreigner doing illegal mining in Ghana is 20 years. They were caught in the act; they were inside the pit when they were arrested. Eventually, they couldn’t do anything,” he added, a citinewsroom.com report said.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
