Sammy Gyamfi, Acting Chief Executive Officer of Ghana’s state-run Gold Board and a senior figure within the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), announced that law enforcement authorities are poised to apprehend a major player in the country’s illegal mining trade, widely known as “galamsey.”
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View program, Mr.Gyamfi said a high-profile arrest is imminent. “Mark my words: in the coming days, one of the biggest kingpins in galamsey, along with his associates, will be arrested,” he said during a live broadcast.
The announcement comes as Ghana intensifies efforts to curb illegal mining, an industry that has inflicted lasting environmental damage on the nation’s forests and rivers. Gyamfi, who assumed leadership of GoldBod earlier this year, emphasized recent government gains in reclaiming lands once ravaged by unauthorized mining operations.
“Of the nine forest reserves that were previously classified as red zones, seven have now been largely secured,” he said, adding that the reclamation efforts followed a series of targeted raids.
According to Gyamfi, more than 160 individuals have been arrested in the recent crackdown. Authorities also seized a significant cache of equipment believed to have been used in mining operations, including 125 excavators, ten bulldozers, seven pickup trucks, and 50 motorbikes.
“These operations have forced out the major operators entrenched in forest reserves,” he said.
In a pointed critique of the previous administration, Gyamfi said the current government has managed the anti-galamsey initiative without the controversies that dogged earlier efforts. “You haven’t heard of missing excavators or unaccounted-for drones. You haven’t heard of government officials being implicated in these activities under this administration,” he noted.
Illegal gold mining remains a volatile issue in Ghana, Africa’s leading gold producer, where economic pressures and weak enforcement have allowed the practice to flourish despite years of policy interventions.
Source:TheDotNews