‘Rains caused pollution of river bodies' – Lands Minister

The Ministry has come under the spotlight in recent weeks following reports that illegal mining activities are still ongoing in some parts of the country.

Earlier this week, some videos and photos popped up showing the deteriorating state of some water bodies as a result of galemsey activities.

However, the Minister said the anti-galamsey taskforce is still working diligently to combat illegal mining activities in the country.

He told the media Thursday that the situation has improved, adding at the polluted water bodies are due to recent rains, rather than illegal mining activities.

“There are some miscreants who still move about to do this illegal mining and do the washing into the river bodies but it is not as much as it used to be prior to 2016/2017,” Mr. Kyeremeh said, as quoted by Citinewsroom.com.

“Prior to the date the ban was put in place and after the ban was lifted, we saw some form of sanity and it is that sanity we are talking about today.

“The rains that set in today might have caused some river bodies to go close to the bad state that we found them but it is not all that bad as we saw in 2016.”

The Minister, however, acknowledged that there are still some recalcitrant illegal miners in some parts of the country, but said the anti-galamsey taskforce will soon clamp all of them down.

“Some illegal miners are in the forest today, it is true, we are chasing them. That is why we have laws. Otherwise there would not have been laws dealing with such misfits. We have been able to clamp down on these illegal activities to a larger extent,” he added.