Government’s anti-illegal mining task force, Operation Vanguard has arrested some ninety three illegal miners.
This brings the total number of arrested illegal miners to one hundred and eighty three.
[contextly_sidebar id=”jAjSuIyD51UVha3IeW6GuMoD0Ee2l6P2″]The miners were arrested in some illegal mining areas in the Ashanti, Eastern and Western Regions.
All ninety arrested earlier have been arraigned in various parts of the country.
The Public Relations Officer of Operation Vanguard, Major Gariba Pabi told Citi News those arrested will soon be prosecuted.
“As at this morning we have made 183 arrests in these three regions. All those arrested have been handed over to the Police in the various regions and they are taking them through prosecution process. What we do is that when we arrest illegal miners on the site, we hand them over to the Police and the Police takes over from there.”
Addressing the challenge of defiant miners who operate in the night, Major Gariba Pabi said they have devised strategies to clamp down on them.
“We are 400 in three regions so we cannot be everywhere at a particular time. We are making do with the 400. Now we do limited operations. Most of the operations we do is during the day.”
Operation Vanguard [a taskforce comprising a joint military and police of about 400 personnel] was sent to three regions – Ashanti, Eastern and Western, to flush out illegal miners in those areas.
The operation recorded a near setback a few weeks after the military personnel shot an illegal miner at Obuasi Anyimadukrom in the Ashanti Region.
The teams have been tasked to stay at their assigned regions until all forms of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey, have been stopped and unauthorised mining pits permanently destroyed.
To make their work very efficient, the anti-galamsey task force that was trained at the Bundase Training Camp in the Ningo Prampram District in the Greater Accra Region was equipped and fully armed.
The task force was also supplied with new patrol vehicles and other logistics to enable its members perform their operations with urgency and speed.
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By: Marian Ansah & Kojo Agyeman /citifmonline.com/Ghana