The Akim Oda Divisional Police Command has arrested two foreign nationals and a sub-chief for allegedly engaging in illegal mining at Akyem Oda in the Birim Central Municipality.
The three, a Ghanaian sub-chief and two Yemenites who were picked up by the police at the mining site were sent to the Akim Oda Police station before being granted police inquiry bail.
The Akim Oda community mining project coordinator, Nana Owusu Agyekum, who dispelled claims they were engaging in galamsey said the two Yemenites only came to install components of a recycling machine and train his workers on the use of the machines which will be used for the community mining.
“They are Yemenites, we are in a global world and as a businessman if you are able to write a good business proposal, you can lure any investor to your side. That is how we were able to partner them. We have been using so many mechanisms, and it’s not helping. So we decided to team up and buy this machine so that we can get good results in which our water bodies and lands will not be destroyed. No one is using this machine as of now in Ghana. The two Yemenites only came to install components of the recycling machine,” he explained.
On the issue of the galamsey fight, Nana Owusu Agyemang called on the government to permanently ban the importation of chanfans.
“The equipment and everything that they use is very cheap, so anybody at all can go into mining provided they can get a land. Illegal mining is the cheapest way of doing mining. If we want to check the menace of galamsey, government has to stop people from importing chanfan machines, the cheapest machine they use to do galamsey. If you stop them, they will not get machines to do galamsey,” he opined.