South Africa, Sudan, and other African countries battling illegal mining have been visiting Ghana to learn how the country is combating illegal mining (galamsey).
Officials from these two countries have already visited Ghana, where they met with officials from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Minerals Commission, and other stakeholders to discuss the techniques they used to combat the menace.
George Mireku Duker, Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources made the announcement on Thursday.
“I got scared when I was appointed as Deputy Minister because we get to a place and you ask who is mining here and you have to fight it because those involved are politicians. We have politicians involved in illegal mining”, he explained.
He said “South Africans have been here to learn how we are fighting the galamsey. They collaborated with us to learn how we are fighting the galamsey. Sudan, the Minister for Mining was also here wanting to know how we are fighting”.
Mr. Duker added, “we are doing well. We have some success stories to share but of course, there are challenges. I will not say there are no challenges, but we are getting there”.
The Deputy Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Tarkwa Nsuaem Constituency, added, “We now have ‘Operation Halt II’ in place.”
“The soldiers are there and there is a level that I have gotten to that I am happy with. We are not against mining but we are against illegal mining so the operation halt II soldiers are in the forest. They are burning the seized excavators because those people don’t have the nation at heart”.
He noted that “the burning of excavators has minimized illegal mining. We need to protect the heritage of this country. We need to protect the water bodies. We need to protect the lands and forest”.
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