The continuous spate of illegal mining in Ghana has necessitated a review of the government’s security strategies in combating the menace.

Minister of National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah who disclosed this stated that the revision, when implemented, will help the government institute strict and robust anti-galamsey policies to weed out illegal mining.

Speaking at the West Africa Mining Security (WAMS) Conference in

Accra on Wednesday, Mr Kan-Dapaah intimated that foreign nationals involved in the ongoing canker could truncate the current state of the country’s security system and forest reserves.

“The strategy is under review because we need to find a more effective way of stopping the degradation.”

Government in its quest to eradicate illegal mining, set up a military task force in 2017 and ordered a 20-month ban on all small mining.

The taskforce was given the authority to confiscate equipment belonging to illegal mining operators and shut down mines without official paperwork.

Recently, the taskforce arrested 164 suspected illegal miners, impounded 300 Changfans and 12 excavators used in illegal mining at Ayinam and Mampong, in the Eastern Region.

In spite of the various measures instituted to curtail the canker, little progress has been made so far as the activities are still in full force.

This led to a series of calls from various environmental bodies asking the government to go back to its drawing board and revise its anti-galamsey strategy.

An environmentalist, Nana Dwomoh Sarpong, said the government’s top-bottom operations were not yielding any results.

He argued that “we have had Operation Vanguard, Operation Akufo-Addo involved in another video theft after Kirani Ayat’s episode Halt and Operation Halt II, all constituted at the top in Accra, but the problem persists, which tells us that something is wrong in our strategy.”

“The regions and districts are there already; they know all the areas and the people who engage in the illegal activities, so why do we send people from Accra to take charge of the operations?” he queried.

The National Security Minister, however, assured the public that the revision of the security strategy to fight illegal mining will incorporate all suggestions made by both private and governmental institutions.

He, thus, called for collaboration between stakeholders to ensure a safe mining industry.

Source: The Independent Ghana