The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has unveiled a bold new strategy in the fight against illegal mining, announcing plans to target not just miners, but also the financiers, facilitators, and equipment suppliers fueling the destructive activity known locally as galamsey.
In a statement launching Operation WATER SHIELD, NAIMOS outlined a national enforcement campaign aimed at safeguarding Ghana’s major rivers, watersheds, and critical water resources from the ravages of illegal mining. Unlike previous efforts that primarily focused on miners and mining sites, this campaign will pursue the wider criminal and financial networks sustaining galamsey operations.
The campaign will increase scrutiny on those who facilitate illegal mining, unauthorized manufacturers of chanfang machines, and individuals or companies that rent or supply excavators, water pumps, and other machinery used in the illicit trade. Enforcement, NAIMOS pledged, will be “firm, sustained and uncompromising, within the law.”
Illegal miners working on riverbanks and water bodies should expect their operations to be disrupted, with any seized equipment immobilized or dealt with according to the law. Excavators, chanfang machines, water pumps, and dredging equipment will remain prime targets.
Operation WATER SHIELD will focus on some of Ghana’s most threatened river systems, including the Birim, Ankobra, Tano, Bia, Pra, and Offin Rivers, as well as critically impacted sections of the Black and White Volta systems. Strategic source areas and upper catchments, which play a crucial role in downstream water quality, will also receive priority attention.
NAIMOS described the campaign as a shift from isolated enforcement actions to a sustained, intelligence-led approach that targets both the source and downstream impact zones of illegal mining. The operation will be conducted in collaboration with security and state agencies to deny illegal miners access to riverbanks and waterways, dismantle their logistics and financing structures, and support the restoration of degraded water bodies.
Ultimately, the Secretariat’s goal is to “substantially degrade and contain illegal mining within protected watersheds,” restrict the movement of heavy equipment into sensitive river systems, and disrupt the networks that enable illegal mining to persist.
Source: Apexnewsgh.com