{"id":1181397,"date":"2022-08-17T14:18:54","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T14:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/08\/17\/lands-ministry-arrests-8-illegal-miners-destroys-800-changfans-on-river-offin-and-pra\/"},"modified":"2022-08-17T14:18:54","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T14:18:54","slug":"lands-ministry-arrests-8-illegal-miners-destroys-800-changfans-on-river-offin-and-pra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/08\/17\/lands-ministry-arrests-8-illegal-miners-destroys-800-changfans-on-river-offin-and-pra\/","title":{"rendered":"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-text\" style=\"line-height: 2; letter-spacing: -0.5px;font-size: 18px;\">\n<p>                        <!--p class=\"ky_saved_articles_link\"><span class=\"ky_saved_articles_hide\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" class=\"ky_saved_articles_img\" alt=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra \" title=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra \"><\/span> Bookmark<\/p-->\n<p>The Lands and Natural Resources Ministry has arrested eight persons involved in illegal mining activities popularly known as \u201cgalamsey\u201d on River Offin and Pra.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Over 800 Changfans used by illegal small scale miners were also destroyed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This happened on Wednesday, August 17, during a three-day raid by Operation Halt-2 with the help of Military personnel.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"524\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/607644BC-57FA-4092-82B8-A860FF35021B.jpeg\" alt=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0\" class=\"wp-image-10032153958\"   title=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>A Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in charge of Mines, George Mireku Duker led the operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Duker speaking at Nkotimso in the Upper Denkyira West District where River Offin had been destroyed by the galamsayers said the government is committed to ending illegal mining in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the military, we started last Friday and they\u2019ve been patrolling the Offin and the Ankobra Rivers, making sure that we clampdown these recalcitrant who are so determined to destroy our river bodies. It\u2019s very unfortunate that out of greed, people are destroying the heritage and future of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"587\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/C86C94D5-D1AA-413C-A420-A7F27BBDB2F7.jpeg\" alt=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0\" class=\"wp-image-10032153961\"   title=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cIrrespective of the efforts that government has unleashed on these people, I\u2019m so saddened to see these people just mining in the river body without any shred of responsibility of being a Ghanaian.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVery sad situation. Just last week, we received a video that went viral showcasing people mining in the river bodies without any recourse to the law, and that occasioned this operation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Deputy Minister also commended the military for their swift response in burning illegal mining equipment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me commend the military, so far they\u2019ve burnt close to 900, and you could imagine the cost that they have saved this nation. We are so happy that they\u2019ve shown that commitment and the resilient to fight this battle\u201d, he appreciated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He also urged Ghanaians, especially those in privilege positions to support the fight against the \u201cdisturbing\u201d activities of galamsey.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"750\" height=\"375\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/AE0C8596-DF73-4207-899D-11212FED559F.jpeg\" alt=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0\" class=\"wp-image-10032153963\"   title=\"Lands Ministry arrests 8 illegal miners, destroys 800 Changfans on River Offin and Pra\u00a0\"\/><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAs a country, we must commit to fighting this battle together. The government alone cannot fight this battle. We need all hands on deck to fight this battle especially our chiefs, our opinion leaders, stakeholders, politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you look at this jurisdiction, it falls under a district, so if we do constant supervision, constant patrolling of the area, I don\u2019t think these people will be emboldened to mine\u201c, he urged.<\/p>\n<p>George Mireku Duker stated that the eight galamsayers arrested would be prosecuted.<\/p>\n<p>                <!-- Post Tags --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lands and Natural Resources Ministry has arrested eight persons involved in illegal mining activities popularly known as \u201cgalamsey\u201d on River Offin and Pra.\u00a0 Over 800 Changfans used by illegal small scale miners were also destroyed.\u00a0 This happened on Wednesday, August 17, during a three-day raid by Operation Halt-2 with the help of Military personnel. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[2794,23597,9682,4981,703,921,459,23352,16226,376],"class_list":["post-1181397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-arrests","tag-changfans","tag-destroys","tag-illegal","tag-lands","tag-miners","tag-ministry","tag-offin","tag-pra","tag-river"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}