The police anti-galamsey task force has intensified operations in the illegal mining areas, making several arrests in the Ashanti and Western regions in separate exercises over the weekend.
The Special Anti-Galamsey Task Force based at Manso Adubia in the Ashanti Region, last Saturday extended its daily operations to Juaso, a suburb of the Asante Akim South Municipality, where the task force impounded two excavators.
A team of 37 personnel, led by Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Bawah Abdul Jalil, onboard six service vehicles, proceeded to Dwendwenase, a suburb of Juaso, to carry out the operation based on intelligence that indicated that Chinese nationals had invaded parts of the Dwendwenase Forest Reserve for their illegal mining activities.
“Upon noticing the presence of the task force, the suspects fled the scene, abandoning two excavators.
“Efforts were made to start and relocate the excavators. However, one of them was found to be faulty and could not be started or moved. The other excavator was successfully loaded onto a low-bed carrier,” a police situational report said.
It said the team received additional intelligence about a nearby village, Atta Ne Atta, near Dwendwenase, that an excavator operator had hidden another machine in a cocoa farm.
The team proceeded to the location and impounded it.
Components
The operator had disconnected some components, making it difficult to start or move it.
The destruction by team NAIMOS and the blue water guards in the nzema east District
However, the report said, with the expertise of the task force’s technical team, the excavator was successfully started and subsequently loaded onto the low-bed carrier.
“Both excavators were then transported to the base at Patase for safekeeping and further action,” the report said.
Western Region
In the Western Region, the team stormed separate locations at Adiewoso and Tettrem in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality where 12 suspects, including a female, were arrested.
The joint anti-galamsey operation involved personnel from the Second Infantry Battalion (2BN), police and national security.
The team retrieved two tricycles, a motorcycle, and destroyed 25 chanfang machines, which were subsequently burned.
The 12 suspects, along with the seized exhibits, are currently in custody at the Agona Nkwanta Police District Police Command in the Ahanta West Municipality, helping in the investigations.
The arrests came after the security task force in the Western Region resolved to make the region unattractive to the illegal miners in any form to halt the degradation of the environment.
The squads operate back-to-back, rely on intel from the local communities and AI technology to identify targets and deal with the miners who largely are not natives of the affected communities.
The squads of security task force is a collaboration between the army, the commands of the two police regions, the taskforce of the National Anti-illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) and the Blue Water Guards.
The operation over the weekend, led by the NAIMOS and the Nzema Blue Water Guards at Abelebo and Akango communities in the Nzema East Municipality, saw the destruction of 50 chanfang machines, polytanks, power generators and pipe lines at the sites.
The task force also dealt with several makeshift structures erected along the course of the Ankobra River used as shelters by the illegal miners.
The Western Regional Minister, Joseph Nelson, said the fight against illegal mining would not be an event but a sustained fight until the environment was rid of the sins against nature.
“From my observation, when operations are executed, the illegal miners often retreat, only to return when they think the coast is clear. We will not relent, we will make sure we deal with them and sustain the fight,” he said.
Rubber production
Earlier, the illegal miners had made serious incursion into the plantation of matured rubber ready for tapping.
The situation is crippling the operations of the Ghana Rubber Estate Limited (GREL) in some areas, with more than 6,000 hectares of rubber plantation totalling more than 2,000 trees destroyed by the activities of illegal miners.
Officials of the company said illegal mining had slashed the company’s yields in affected areas, with the Western Regional Coordinating Council describing the situation as worrying.
The Western Regional Security Liaison Officer, Brigadier General Musa Whajah (retd), said to mitigate the incursion, aside from the clampdown on galamsey, there was the need to engage host communities in dialogue to highlight the devastating impact of illegal mining on their operations.
Source: graphic.com.gh
