The legal concession owner in the Tano Anwia Forest Reserve in the Western Region has teamed up with the Forestry Commission to flush out armed criminals who have entrenched illegal mining operations in the forest.
Fifteen excavators have been seized as the miners fled into the forest. However, the raid has not been without confrontations and controversy.
Since the operation began on Thursday, armed policemen from the Enchi District and Divisional Police Commands entered the forest to confront the team, which was made up of soldiers and the Forestry Commission’s Rapid Response Team.
The police questioned the legitimacy of their operations in the forest. After heated verbal exchanges, the police left.
Subsequently, our sources within the troops informed us that the Western North Regional Minister drove to the forest and instructed the taskforce to stop moving the seized equipment out of the forest, claiming he had not been informed of the operation.
This move, according to our sources, emboldened some of the illegal miners to attempt to retrieve their equipment.
Three days into the operation, the raid was halted due to a purported order from the Second-in-Command (2IC) of the 2nd Battalion instructing the men to stop seizing equipment that had been moved out of the forest following a tip-off about the raid.
However, the 2IC later clarified that he had not issued such an order, and the team was instructed to return to their duties.
The Tano Anwia Forest Reserve has been under siege by illegal mining activities since last year, with more armed groups joining the fray this year. Attempts to flush them out have been largely fraught with allegations of corruption and extreme vested interests.
An aide to the Western North Regional Minister told Erastus Asare Donkor on the phone that the minister only went to the forest to find out why he had not been informed of the operation, as he is the head of the Regional Security Council.
The Enchi Divisional Police Commander and the District Commander, Karim and Baron, were involved in the operation, with the blessing of the sector minister.
Captain Tetteh led the first operation but claimed they couldn’t find the illegal miners. However, notifications went out, and 25 excavators were tracked out of the reserve and seized.
Footage available shows the excavators were being used for mining in the forest, and once news of the raid spread, the excavators were moved. They have now been seized.
Armed police confronted the illegal miners and had planned to arrest them. However, the illegal miners have so far prevented the team from seizing an additional 25 excavators that were pulled out of the forest following a tip-off.
The Tano Anwia Forest raid enters its fourth day today.