Verdict after 7-month monitoring: Galamsey fight lukewarm
Strong political will, exertion of custodial authority by chiefs, and unflinching citizen vigilantism over the environment are the three-pronged approaches needed to win the fight against illegal mining, popularly called galamsey.
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This must be anchored on strict enforcement of the country’s mining laws and the retooling of local state institutions with oversight responsibility for the environment.
This is the prescription of various stakeholders, including residents of mining communities, to decisively deal with the galamsey menace, which has escalated seven years after the government declared war on the environmental crime.
The stakeholders, who included environmentalists, officials of the Forestry Commission, some district officers of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) and family members of victims of galamsey, are worried that there was a lethargic approach to the fight against the menace despite its debilitating impact on the environment and human lives.
They made the call to the Daily Graphic during a seven-month fact-finding mission to mining communities across the country between February 5 and September 5 this year.
Galamsey war
When President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo took over as President of the country, he made a solemn promise to clamp down on illegal mining even if it was going to cost him the presidency.
“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 the fight against galamsey,” the President said on July 10, 2017, while addressing a two-day workshop on galamsey for traditional leaders drawn from different parts of the country in Accra.
Following that pledge, the government put an almost two-year ban on all forms of small-scale mining in a bid to sanitise the mining sector.
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As part of the gamut of measures to stem the menace, an inter-ministerial committee on illegal mining was formed to coordinate and roll out policies and measures to fight the menace. Subsequently, a military deployment, dubbed “Operation Vanguard”, was launched and sent to hotspots to flash out illegal miners.
In April 2021, the government launched the Operation Halt II, made up of personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces, to remove all persons and mining equipment from water bodies such as Pra, Offin, Ankobra, Birim and Ayensu, as well as forest reserves in the country.
In July 2022, five speed boats were also acquired and deployed to help the security agencies and river guards to patrol the country’s waterbodies. The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, who commissioned the boats at Beposo, near Sekondi in the Western Region, said they would be deployed on the Ankobra and the Pra rivers in the region, the Birim River in the Eastern Region and the Black Volta in the Savannah Region.
The verdict
In spite of these measures, the Daily Graphic’s field visit to mining communities revealed that the galamsey menace had escalated, with major rivers almost dead, while forest reserves were suffocating to extinction.
In their desperate search for gold, the illegal miners inject volumes of mercury, cyanide and other poisonous chemicals into waterbodies, leaving the environment heavily polluted, posing dire health consequences to residents of mining communities.
Additionally, swathes of agricultural lands and forest reserves have been reduced to gaping gullies by illegal mining activities, which involve the use of excavators and other heavy earth-moving equipment.
Hotspots
In the Ashanti Region, illegal miners are having a field day as forest reserves, waterbodies and cocoa farms continue to be destroyed with impunity. For instance, at Konongo, a town located on the Accra-Kumasi road, illegal mining activities are rife, with the vegetation in the area being reduced to nothing.
On a daily basis, illegal miners, who are armed with excavators and other earth-moving machines wipe out swathes of land in broad daylight, leaving behind gaping pits that pose serious threats to human lives. The Owerri River, stretching from Konongo to Odumasi and which serves as the main source of water supply to the Asante Akyem Central and Asante Akyem North districts, has been heavily polluted by illegal mining activities, leaving the thousands of residents in these areas at risk of water insecurity.
The Head Pastor of New Life Church of Light located at Konongo, Rev. Raphael Oppong, told the Daily Graphic that the illegal mining situation in the area was an eyesore and a blot on the conscience of persons in authority who had the mandate to stop the menace.
"The illegal miners have destroyed the vegetation so much that the residents of this area feel helpless. Owerri River, which is the main source of water supply for us, is getting so polluted, and no one seems to care about it.
"The police are doing nothing about it; the chiefs are not taking any action; the District Chief Executive is not being proactive, and even the Minerals Commission Office here in Konongo said they do not know anything about what is happening," he said.
The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, revealed that 25 out of the region’s 43 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) were under siege by illegal miners. The most affected areas in the Ashanti Region include Amansie West, Amansie Central, Amansie South, Akrofuom, Adansi North, the Obuasi municipality, and Asante Akyem Central.
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The illegal mining activities are also pervasive in Ellembelle, Mpohor, Tarkwa-Nsuaem and Prestea Huni-Valley in the Western Region, as well as the Aowin and the Bibiani-Anhwiaso-Bekwai municipalities in the Western North Region. In the Eastern Region, residents of Kyebi, Oda, Kwabeng, Osino, Anyinam, and Akwatia are grappling with the galamsey menace.
Water Pollution
During a visit to Twifo-Praso in the Twifo-Atti-Mokwa District in the Central Region as recently as September 4 this year, the Daily Graphic observed that the Pra River had been heavily polluted by illegal mining activities.
Scores of chanfang machines and other floating platforms that illegal miners use to stir up the river bed in the desperate search for gold were in the middle of the river.
The District Director of NADMO, Richmond Addae Marfo, said although efforts were being made to fight the illegal activities, the lack of resources was a huge challenge.
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“Most of the time, people are quick to chastise those of us at the local level in the media for not fighting the galamsey boys, but we are here without equipment to move out for operation.
“The galamsey boys do their operation on the Pra River at midnight, and we do not have a speed boat to go after them. I have only three life jackets, and one got burnt during our operation on September 3; so how can we risk our lives in this situation to fight illegal miners?” he questioned.
Mr Marfo stressed that the only way illegal miners could be removed from waterbodies was for politicians, chiefs and citizens to work together “with genuine commitment”.
Meanwhile, the pollution of the Pra River, which serves as the major source of raw water to the Sekyere Hemang Water Treatment Plant of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in the Central Region, has affected water supply to many communities, particularly within Cape Coast and its environs.
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On August 30 this year, the GWCL made a distress call for urgent steps to be taken to halt galamsey activities in the Pra River to prevent imminent water crisis in the region.
"About 60 per cent of the catchment capacity is silted as a result of illegal mining, compromising the quality of raw water. We are currently recording an average turbidity of 14,000 nephelometric turbidity units (NTU) instead of 2,000 NTU designed for adequate treatment.
Currently, the plant is able to produce only 7,500m3 per day, a quarter of its installed capacity,” the GWCL revealed in its press release.
The incessant galamsey activities on the Pra River has also left the Daboase treatment plant of the GWCL incapable of treating adequate water to serve the people of Takoradi and its environs in the Western Region.
The Central and Western Regional Public Relations Officer (PRO) of GWCL, Nana Yaw Barima Banie, described the activities of the illegal miners as an existential threat, and called for bold steps to halt mining in waterbodies.
“Galamsey people are taking our lives gradually by polluting our sources of water, and it will get to a time where we will not have water at all.
The Pra River is now like water in a gutter. We need to come together and stop these galamsey activities,” he stressed.
The Birim River, which supplies raw water to the GWCL's treatment plants at Bunso and Osino in the Eastern Region, has also been under siege by illegal miners.
Such is the case with some tributaries of the Densu River at the Potroase and Akwadum communities in the Kyebi District in the Eastern Region. The Densu River, which feeds GWCL's Weija Reservoir, an essential water source for parts of the Greater Accra Region, as well as Nsawam and surrounding communities in the Eastern Region, is under threat.
Forest reserves
The Daily Graphic’s visits to the mining regions and communities further revealed that forest reserves have particularly been pillaged by illegal miners on a mass scale. These include Afao Hills in the Bibiani Forest District in the Western-North Region, and Denyau and Supoma, both in the Bekwai Forest District in the Ashanti Region.
The field visits revealed that while officials of the Rapid Response Team (RRT) of the Forestry Commission were making
frantic efforts to crack down on the galamsey activities, the daring illegal miners have thrown caution to the wind, and continue to devise strategies to perpetrate their illegalities on forest reserves. In some cases, the heavily armed illegal miners attack, maim and even kill the staff of the Forestry Commission.
The Bonsa River Forest Reserve (Aboso North Range) in the Tarkwa District in the Western Region has been one of the hotspots for illegal mining. The galamsey operators carry out the operations using water-pumping machines, shovels, and other handheld tools.
It was observed that they had mounted tents and operate in the forest reserve day and night, which was evidenced by packs of assorted food items, bags of sachet water, and other personal effects the team found at the site.
In a related development, two excavators and one motorbike were immobilised in the Apamprama Forest Reserve, near Kobro, on Friday, June 28, 2024 by the staff of FSD in the Bekwai District of the Ashanti Region and members of the RRT. The culprits bolted upon seeing the team, escaping arrest.
The destruction caused by illegal mining to the country’s forest reserves is alarming, with the recent State of the Nation’s Forest report by the Forestry Commission revealing that 392,714.81 hectares of the country’s 288 forest reserves had been “significantly impacted” by illegal mining activities, out of which 4,726.26 hectares in 34 of the reserves had been confirmed as destroyed.
Some district officers of the Forestry Services Division (FSD) of the Forestry Commission told the Daily Graphic on condition of anonymity that the incessant galamsey in forest reserves was because of interference by politicians and traditional rulers.
They said it was disheartening that while their rapid response teams risked their lives to arrest recalcitrant illegal miners under precarious environments, political figures and chiefs exerted their authority to get them freed. They also said some illegal miners who were arrested by the rapid response teams and handed over to the police were let off the hook.
The Executive Director of the FSD of the Forestry Commission, Hugh Brown, told the Daily Graphic that in spite of the challenges with adequate resources and political will to fight illegal mining in forest reserves, the commission was determined to protect the natural resource for posterity.
"This war against galamsey in forest reserves requires collaborative and sustained efforts from various stakeholders, including our military, chiefs, police, judiciary, media, civil society and forest-fringe communities to effectively deal with this existential threat," he stressed.
"This war must be won," he emphasised, saying that persons who were fueling the menace must desist from it.
Meanwhile, following public uproar over the escalating spate of galamsey, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, has directed all the 16 regional ministers to ramp up action to clamp down on galamsey in their areas.
Mr Jinapor has also given an assurance that security would be deployed to support the galamsey fight, especially in forest reserves and waterbodies. He cautioned against the politicisation of the fight against the menace, especially when the country was in an election year.
Daryl Bosu, the Deputy National Director of A Rocha Ghana, an environmental non-governmental organisation, said galamsey persisted because of poor enforcement regime and the lack of political will to fight the menace.
“We passed the Minerals and Mining (Amendment) Act, 2019 (Act 995), which was supposed to ensure that people who even fabricate chanfan equipment are dealt with, but there has not been compliance. The political will to enforce the law without fear or favour is critical, and we need the government to be fully committed to this galamsey fight,” he stressed.