The Media Coalition Against Illegal Mining (galamsey) has welcomed the deployment of 400 military and police officers to flush out illegal miners across the country.
According to the convener of the Coalition, Ken Ashigbey, if government had set up the taskforce earlier, galamsey would have been halted long ago and several lives saved.
Code named Operation Vanguard, the joint team has been deployed to endemic areas in the Ashanti, Eastern and Western regions.
Mr Ashigbey told Class News that “for me, this is even long overdue. If we had had these military forces in the field before the Tarkwa-Nsuaem incident happened, I’m sure we could have saved those lives. And also, we had the recent one from the Konongo area, so, I think this is very welcome and it is very critical that we get the forces on the ground so that the recalcitrant people who have refused the call to stay out so we can sanitise the system are dealt with.
“It is worth noting that a lot of the legal small-scale miners have been out, so we cannot let the recalcitrants and those who are actually doing the illegal mining be the people who are perpetuating these evils.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
