The District Security Council (DISEC) has made a passionate appeal to the government through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to resource the military and deploy them to the district to help in the fight against illegal mining, also known as “galamsey.”
According to the Chairman of DISEC, Paul Asamoah, they have exhausted their resources in fighting the increasing number of foreigners who have besieged the district and are actively engaging in galamsey, which is polluting the Pra and Birim rivers in the district.
The plea by DISEC comes after the assembly’s mining taskforce last Friday set ablaze more than 15 chanfan machines belonging to illegal miners who were polluting the Pra and Birim rivers at Ensese Anlo village, a community in the district.
In a briefing to the media after the exercise, Mr. Asamoah, who called for support from the central government, expressed optimism that the illegal miners would abandon their trade if the air force patrolled the river bodies once every two weeks.
“This fight is supposed to be that of the government or the ministry’s because it is going to be difficult for us. We recently came here, but immediately we left, they brought back their equipment and they have started working on the waterbodies again,” he said.
“So my suggestion is that all agencies and personnel authorized to fight galamsey, like soldiers and personnel of the Air Force, should be adequately equipped to patrol and identify these hotspots where these illegal miners use, especially chanfans, for this degrading activity,” he stated.
Mr. Asamoah further indicated that the future of the country looked bleak and blamed powerful forces for sponsoring the activities of the illegal miners in his district.
“What is disheartening is that when we got here this morning, there were a lot of them on the water. When you investigate them, you will find that most of them are foreigners who have been brought in by public officials to engage in such activities. So if we want to end this, I will ask Honorable Abu Jinapor and all other ministers in charge of this fight to take special interest and allow the military to patrol some of these areas and seize these chanfans, otherwise things will get out of hand,” he added.