Kwame Jantuah, Private legal practitioner
Private legal practitioner, Mr Kwame Jantuah has suggested to the government to plant explosives at galamsey sites as a way of deterring miscreants from engaging in the illicit small-scale mining activities.
He said the time has come for the state to take drastic measures to deal with this menace which threatens the entire country.
Speaking in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the mid-day news on 3FM Monday, May 24, he said “My suggestion is, as dangerous as it can be but if it is done accurately and the people who install what I am going to suggest where these things are, probably we would get some results. Unfortunately, some may die.
“I think what we should now start doing is to put explosive mines in the areas. So if you try and you go and it explodes in your face you will learn a lesson.
“Because we need to take drastic measures. They are spoiling the environment for good. If Chinese can grow cocoa under greenhouse effect and now sell nearly 3500 dollars’ worth and tell the international community that Ghanaian cocoa, the soils are inundated with mercury so the cocoa that they are growing is not good and the international community has started warning Ghana, it is affecting the one natural resource that has served this country for years, we can’t sit and joke with it.”
Meanwhile, structures belonging to Xtra-Gold Mining Limited have been burnt by the anti-galamsey military task force Operation Halt.
Reports indicated that the military allegedly assaulted security men on duty.
“They returned on Saturday, sprinkled patrol on the generator plant, and around our office facility and set fire into them.
“They burnt everything in the room including the Television set, DSTV decoder and our personal belongings,” an eyewitness told journalists.
He said, “the security men were deployed by the Company to protect the site so people don’t come around to steal but they were beaten by the military with the butt of the rifles”.
Defence Minister Dominic Nituwl has said that any seized illegal small scale mining (galamsey) equipment will be destroyed on-site by the military officers deployed to the galamsey areas.
He said no gadget will be returned to Accra.
Addressing the media on Friday, April 30, he said “We are not seizing any equipment, no equipment will be returned home, they will all be destroyed on site. No excavator, nothing will come back home.”
About 200 officers of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) on Wednesday morning began an operation to forcefully remove all persons and logistics involved in illegal mining on the country’s river bodies.