“His Excellency, the President, with your permission, I want to warn all illegal miners, their assigns and financiers that they are the prime enemies of the state, and they will be dealt with as such.
“There will be no room for them to escape or hide; NAIMOS will smoke them out very soon; they should get ready and be assured that our waters will soon turn blue and our forests, green.”
These were the words of Col. Dominic Buah, Director of Operations of the National Anti-illegal Mining Operation Secretariat (NAIMOS), when he addressed a meeting between President John Dramani Mahama and civil society groups on the fight against illegal mining yesterday.
The crunch meeting, which came on the back of incessant pressure on the government to declare a state of emergency on the menace, was attended by key groups such as the Ghana Coalition Against Galamsey (GCAG), the Catholic Bishops Conference (CBC); the Christian Council of Ghana (GCG); Imani Africa; and other civil society organisations (CSOs).
Those groups have been mounting pressure on President John Dramani Mahama to declare a state of emergency in areas identified as hotspots of illegal mining.
Presentations from the government and state institutions were followed by questions and comments from the strong representation of the CSOs, some of which presented position papers to the President’s office.
Deployment
In a firm and stern voice, Col Buah, who made a presentation on the work of the task force, said NAIMOS had trained over 400 troops as the first batch and deployed them to sensitive areas to crack down on the galamsey menace, with more to be trained and deployed.
“All illegal miners, their assigns and financiers, beware that NAIMOS is closer to your base, and there will be no escape route for you,” he stressed.
Describing the illegal miners as environmental terrorists, Col Buah stressed that they would be treated as the enemies of the state that they were.
“We have only one Ghana and we have to do everything possible to protect it,” he stressed.
The NAIMOS Operations Director said as part of the strategy to sustain the galamsey fight, the country had been categorised into seven clusters with 21 zones.
“We want to assure Ghanaians that all water bodies within these zones, the forest reserves, the rail lines that are being dug out, will be protected.
We will focus on those areas and make sure that illegal miners are flushed out,” he said.
‘’NAIMOS is on the heels of bigwigs and financiers behind galamsey,’’, he added.
See something, say something
Col Buah also said NAIMOS would have a 24-hour toll-free line for citizens to call in and say something when they saw illegal miners, so that the information could be analysed and action taken appropriately.
He said the lines had already been procured and the secretariat was preparing for take off.
Col Buah said NAIMOS would continue to adopt a coordinated approach to fight galamsey, adding that the Secretariat was collaborating with relevant agencies and institutions, including the National Security Secretariat, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR), the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), the Ghana Police Service (GPS), the National Investigations Bureau (NIB), the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), chiefs, local informants, as well as the Blue Water Guards to wage a multi-pronged war on galamsey.
He gave the assurance that with President Mahama sitting at the top of NAIMOS structure, and a Ministerial Advisory Group comprising relevant ministers, the fight against the menace would be won.
Col Buah said NAIMOS would combine the use of brute force and soft approach, leveraging on the knowledge of chiefs in the galamsey fight.
Achievements
Providing updates on what NAIMOS had done within two months of its establishment, he said 450 excavators had been seized over the period, while 1,400 people had been arrested.
In addition, he said, over 500 chanfang machines were destroyed at mining sites, “over 1,000 pumping machines were also seized and some distributed to farmers,” he said.
Again, Col Buah said some weapons had been seized by NAIMOS operatives and handed over to the Minister for the Interior.
He also said some vehicles were seized during their operations.
“We need some of these vehicles to facilitate our work, so the Attorney-General should help us to legally take them,” Col Buah appealed.
Licence review
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, who made a presentation ahead of Col Buah, said while NAIMOS was undertaking operations to clamp down on illegal mining activities, the government was also ramping up measures to tighten the noose on the licensing regime in the small-scale mining sector.
He explained that the committee set up to review all licences in the small scale mining (SSM) sub-sector had completed its work, and a formal announcement of the results would be done in about one week.
Mr Buah added that the policy on mining was currently being revised and by next year, there would be a robust regime to sustainably deal with galamsey.
Excavators
Touching on regulating excavators, he said about 1,200 of the equipment imported into the country had been registered, and that some were being tracked.
“Currently, the DVLA and the Minerals Commission are working together at the port to register and track all imported excavators; and as of now, 1,181 excavators have been registered and 724 being tracked already,” he said.
Mr Buah said the relevant authorities were monitoring the movement of the excavators carefully to know where they were at any point in time.
The minister also said mining concessions had been geo-fenced to ensure that any excavator that moved out of the designated concession was immediately detected and immobilised.
Reclamation
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources stressed that the government was also focused on rolling out a reclamation programme to restore degraded landscape.
“Reclamation is a very expensive exercise and so we call on all Ghanaians, and corporate bodies to come in and support this move,” he said.
Mr Buah added that although the results of the fight against galamsey was not as remarkable as anticipated, “we are making progress and will continue until we win it.”
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