{"id":323439,"date":"2017-05-29T14:10:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-29T14:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=323439"},"modified":"2017-05-29T14:10:35","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T14:10:35","slug":"our-personnel-were-at-mining-site-legally-armed-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=323439","title":{"rendered":"Our personnel were at mining site legally &#8211; Armed Forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghana Armed Forces has defended the deployment of some of its men to protect Geo Professional Services Company, a mining company in the Amansie West District in the Ashanti Region, found to be operating illegally.<\/p>\n<p>According to the military, the deployment was made following a request by the Ashanti Regional Security Council.<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;NGe6SHaQcDruC1TgOwSMoW9kUfQHc06C&#8221;]The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/05\/29\/galamsey-soldiers-were-deployed-upon-request-minister\/\">also confirmed<\/a><\/strong><\/span> this to <strong>Citi News<\/strong>, noting that their deployment was upon a request from the then Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister, Joseph Yamin.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the soldiers were deployed\u00a0after the Geo Professional Services (GPS) Company complained about attacks from illegal miners.<\/p>\n<p>However, speaking to <strong>Citi News<\/strong>, the Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Armed Forces, Colonel Aggrey Quarshie, rejected any accusations of illegal deployment against the Army.<\/p>\n<p>The military had come under heavy criticism after the Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Peter Amewu,\u00a0<span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/05\/23\/soldiers-protecting-galamsey-operators-amewu\/\">discovered that<\/a><\/strong><\/span> some soldiers were protecting their mining concession in Tontokrom in the Amansie West District.<\/p>\n<p>During the tour of the area, some 15 soldiers were seen protecting the activities of the miners which were described as illegal by Mr. Amewu.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/amewu-galamsey-tour-1-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-321684\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/amewu-galamsey-tour-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"amewu-galamsey-tour-1-1\" width=\"600\" height=\"449\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The soldiers cited Lt.Col. Sebastian Abraham Arhin, Commanding Officer of the 4th Battalion of Infantry, as the one who instructed their deployment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GPS did not warrant protection<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But Mr. Amewu, commenting briefly on the military&#8217;s assertion, noted that, only companies under the Ghana Chamber of Mines&#8217; umbrella, could benefit from military protection.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[Deploying] Those soldiers were not part of the agreement. The agreement with the soldiers is an MOU [Memorandum of understanding] entered into companies that are collectively under the Chamber of Mines,\u201d Mr. Amewu stated.<\/p>\n<p>Since the concerns were raised by Mr. Amewu, military personnel have been recalled from all mining sites; according to the Ashanti Regional Minister<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Franklin Badu Jnr\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghana Armed Forces has defended the deployment of some of its men to protect Geo Professional Services Company, a mining company in the Amansie West District in the Ashanti Region, found to be operating illegally. According to the military, the deployment was made following a request by the Ashanti Regional Security Council. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;NGe6SHaQcDruC1TgOwSMoW9kUfQHc06C&#8221;]The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":322809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[7374,150,3],"class_list":["post-323439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-army","tag-galamsey","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=323439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=323439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=323439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=323439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}