'We lost control of the excavators' – Prof Frimpong-Boateng on missing galamsey machines

The Chairman of the now-defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has revealed how hundreds of excavators seized during the fight against illegal mining (galamsey) went missing during his tenure.

Speaking on Good Evening Ghana on January 21, 2026, Professor Frimpong-Boateng explained that the early stages of the operation were led by the military, who seized excavators from illegal mining sites but lacked proper holding facilities.

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“When we started the [galamsey] fight, the military people were leading the seizure of excavators. They were seizing the excavators. Initially, we didn't know where to take them, so they took them to the district assembly or the local police station,” he disclosed.

He added that when taskforce members later tried to verify the seized equipment, they discovered that many had been tampered with or removed.

“We [taskforce] would then go later on, send some of the civilian employees to go to this police station, go to this district assembly and see how many excavators were there. When you go there, what happened was that they disabled them, they would take the motherboard away. Then the people would buy a new motherboard, activate the excavator, and drive them away,” he said.

The professor noted that the discrepancy between the number of excavators seized and those recovered was alarming.

“So instead of expecting 300 excavators, you go and there are only 10. At the time that the soldiers said they had 600 excavators, you could only retrieve about 120. The rest had been taken back to the bush by the owners… we lost control [of the excavators]. They knew the police, we told them,” he added.

To address the situation, the committee sought secure locations to keep the seized excavators, a move facilitated by then IMCIM Secretary, Charles Bissue. The excavators were subsequently moved to private depots in several locations.

“What happened was that we needed a place to keep these excavators, and luckily our Secretary, Charles Bissue, who was very hard-working, brought in a friend, Ekow Ewusi, who was an auctioneer and had some locations where he kept his vehicles. He had depots in the Industrial Area, Oyarifa, Tema, and elsewhere. So that’s where we took the seized excavators. I thought they were very safe over there,” he explained.

However, reports soon emerged that some of the excavators were allegedly being stolen and sold.

“I was getting reports from Ministers, particularly Barbara Oteng Gyasi. She comes from a very important mining area. She said, ‘Professor, people are saying that their excavators have been stolen and sold.’ There were several reports until one day, the CID caught a young man called Seth Mantey, who was working with Peace FM. Seth Mantey confessed that Ekow Ewusi and another person were selling excavators and giving the money to him to keep in his account at NIB,” he added.

Professor Frimpong-Boateng confirmed that some excavators could not be recovered before he left office. However, those that were retrieved were eventually secured and formally handed over.

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“…Some of them were missing. Yes, some were back in the bush; we couldn't trace them. But those that we could retrieve were sent to a place in Ashaley Botwe. We got soldiers and people, and they were kept there. We had a list of all the excavators... So, all the excavators were handed over to the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources,” he concluded.

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