A member of the Communications team of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), William Frimpong Bonsu has appealed to President Akufo-Addo to see to the immediate dismissal of the 200 soldiers deployed to the Central and Western Regions to protect water bodies as part of the fight against illegal mining.
According to him, there is a possibility of soldiers deployed to these galamsey areas being compromised.
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William made this plea on Happy98.9FM’s ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ political discussion show hosted by Don Kwabena Prah.
The observed that over the years members of the ad hoc groups like Operation Calm Life, Operation Vanguard, National Security Operatives, National Disaster Management (NADMO) team, and the Regional Security Task-force have been exposed in the fight against galamsey.
He explained that there have been instances where soldiers part of galamsey task-force leak information about raids to these illegal miners making the fight close to unwinnable. “The galamseyers are always gone by the time the task-force gets to the location. This is because members of the task-force leak the information to the galamseyers who pay them in return”.
The politician admitted that it is just sad for persons trusted by the President to sell their patriotism for a mere couple of cedis while the vast majority of the people continue to suffer from their water bodies being contaminated.
“This time the soldiers must be dealt with if they also engage in activities that are detrimental to the government’s efforts in fighting galamsey”, he championed.
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.
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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.
