CEO of Minerals Commission, Martin Kwaku Ayisi has warned of excavator seizures in the coming days if the item is not registered. Speaking on GBC”s Breakfast Show on October 26, 2022, and monitored by GhanaReport, the minerals commission boss said the measure is pointed at the illegal mining business which has engulfed the country.
He said, the government is to generate about 300 river wardens whose sole duty is to observe activities around water bodies and report to a centre for response. It is part of raft of measures to contain illegal mining or ‘galamsey’.
Spotting a stern mien, the man who calls the shots at the minerals commission said, even those who are not directly involved in mining but are sales outlets of excavators would have questions to answer if those excavators are not registered. He said, the equipment like any other vehicle ought to be registered or declared illegitimate and confiscated.
He said, the action is in response to the discovery of several such illegitimacy on mining fields in Ghana, their existence clearly a faux pas in the genuine fight against ‘galamsey’ by the Akufo Addo administration.
Not too long ago, the government seized some ‘galamsey’ wares from operators and set them on fire in symbolic show of its intolerance and aversion of the incidence of unauthorized mining in Ghana. Excavators were part of the items destroyed.
Talk about the subject matter has been ratcheting up as the illegal practice has eaten deep into cocoa producing areas and threatened production and position of Ghana as the second-largest producer of the cash crop in the world. Incidentally, gold is one of Ghana’s leading exports and many believe the practice of ‘galamsey’ which pollutes water bodies and removes vegetative cover, represents a leakage from that which ought to accrue to national coffers.
