Deployment of 200 soldiers should have been unannounced – Association of Small-Scale Miners

Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the Ghana National Association of Small-Scale Miners (GNASSM), Ernest Ansah-Owusu, has opined that the announcement of the deployment of soldiers in mining areas is a disadvantage to the fight against galamsey.

Per his view, the news of deployment being made public will only allow these illegal miners to move away from the mining areas until they feel it is safe to return to their operations.

Sharing his thoughts with Happy FM’s Don Prah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, he said: “As I am aware, when you are embarking on an operation like this you don’t give a public notice until you’ve achieved what you want to achieve. Now these people have taken away their excavators and fled. The question now is that how will the soldiers deployed, do what they have been tasked to do? These illegal miners have heard the information so they have packed their things from the site.

Deployment of 200 soldiers should have been unannounced. We don’t just announce it. You go unexpectedly and ask for their license and that is how you sift the bad from the good. All Chinese people have taken their excavators and working plants along with them”.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has authorized the Ghana Armed Forces to deploy 200 soldiers to go after all persons involved in illegal mining popularly known as galamsey.

A release from the Information Ministry stated that the move is to ensure that mining within water bodies is immediately stopped. This latest action to fight galamsey comes after the Stakeholder Dialogue on Small Scale Mining on April 14.

The statement added that the operation commenced on Wednesday, April 28th, 2021, on the River Pra in the Central and Western regions of Ghana.

Meanwhile, reports indicate some of these illegal miners have fled the sites following this directive. For example, President of the Concerned Small-Scale Miners Association, Michael Peprah, in an earlier interview on the Happy Morning Show, revealed that while the operation that begun yesterday has yielded some results, some illegal miners have succeeded in fleeing from the security operatives.