Two environmental activists have urged the Attorney General and Inspector General of Police (IGP) to ensure that all foreigners engaged in illegal mining are brought to book.
The activists also want an update on the number of foreign nationals who have been arrested and deported for engaging in galamsey so far and what their status is at the moment.
Again, they want to know what measures have been put in place to ensure that people do not engage in illegal mining in Ghana.
The Ghana Environmental Advocacy Group and A Rocha Ghana raised these concerns in a petition.
“To read that those arrested end up quietly deported to their home countries with their loot without any further consequences while the state and local communities are left to reel under the weight of the environmental degradation they leave behind is both unconscionable and irresponsible,” the petition stated.
They, therefore, want the AG and IGP to crack the whip on illegal mining.
Their concern follows a media reportage that suggested that only two Chinese nationals arrested from 2012 to date remain in Ghana’s prison.
It also comes after the re-arrest of 47-year-old ‘Galamsey Queen’ Aisha Huang despite her deportation in 2019 for engaging in illegal mining in Ghana.
The prosecution said early this year, Aisha “sneaked” into Ghana, having changed the details on her Chinese passport.
The suspect is said to have applied for a Togo visa and went through the borders into Ghana.
Upon her arrival, she also acquired a Ghana Card in February 2022 with a new name, Huang En.
Aisha then resumed small-scale mining activities without a license and further engaged in the purchase and sale of minerals in Accra without valid authority as granted by the Minerals and Mining Act.
What necessitated the galamsey fight
Over the years, there has been growing public frustration over efforts to reclaim damaged environments.
Polluted water bodies like River Pra are still looking brownish with residues of cyanide.
Some areas of the country initially covered by thick vegetation have become bare.
The NPP government launched Operation Vanguard in 2017 to reclaim mining zones from environmental degradation caused by illegal mining.
President Nana Akufo-Addo made the fight against illegal mining one of the key objectives of his government.
“I have said it in the Cabinet, and perhaps this is the first time I am making this public, that I am prepared to put my Presidency on the line on this matter,” he said in 2017.
The government set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM).
A nationwide ban on small-scale mining and illegal mining, popularly known as ‘galamsey’, followed.
After several years, the government is under pressure to highlight the positives following several scandals.
There is an increasing perception that politicians are neck-deep in illegal mining and are frustrating the fight.
Even the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining has not been free from scandals.
Its secretary, Charles Bissue, resigned after an undercover investigation implicated him.
The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service concluded that Mr Bissue did not circumvent laid down processes.
This was after President Akufo-Addo called for a probe into the matter following a documentary by investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas.
Arrests so far
In December 2019, eight foreign nationals were arrested by the Western Forward Operating Base of Operation Vanguard for allegedly engaging in illegal mining.
The eight consist of six (6) Indians and two (2) Chinese nationals.
The suspects were picked up at Kutu Krom and Nsuta in the Prestea Huni Valley Municipality.
In July 2021, two Chinese nationals who defied a directive to stop mining illegally in forest reserves and water bodies were arrested at Asankragua in the Western Region of Ghana.
They were arrested on Tuesday, 6 July, together with their Ghanaian collaborators.
They had returned to the forest to mine illegally, disregarding the ministerial and presidential directives for all illegal mining in those areas and in water bodies to stop.
On 29 April 2021, two illegal Chinese miners were arrested at their rented residence at Ateiku in the Western Region.
The miners were said to have been operating a site in Patatwumso.