Some of the illegal miners who spoke to Citi News at Anwia, Teleku-Bokazo and Salima communities where the destructive mining is taking place implicated the Ellembele NPP Constituency Chairman, Samuel Tito Kenya, while the Chairman also accused the District Chief Executive, Kwasi Bonzo, of collecting money from the illegal miners.
Upon a tip-off, I arrived at the Anwia community in the Ellembelle District of the Western Regional which just about two kilometres from Nkroful, the home town of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
To my surprise, I heard the noise of machines working in the bush just at the shoulders of the school park and upon reaching there, I saw small scale miners operating in devastated hectares of land.
Though they claimed they are doing reclamation, it was obvious some were also doing galamsey under the cover of reclamation.
One of them, George Opoku, while denying any galamsey, activities told Citi News the destruction was caused by the NPP Constituency Chairman who has been collecting money from the miners.
He added that they were rather contracted by the Ellembele DCE to reclaim the land.
“We are doing reclamation. The NPP Chairman, Atito, was aware since he met the galamsey operators even without the knowledge of the DCE and had an arrangement with them to collect 10 thousand Ghana Cedis every two weeks which he has been collecting. We the executives of galamseyers even had a press conference on this which got the DCE to intervene with their arrest. However, since they are locals, we could not jail them so we asked the DCE to hire Bulldozer for us to do the reclamation and that is what we are doing.”
I moved from the Anwia Community to Teleku-Bokazo community where a vast area had also been devastated by galamsey activities which pollution extends to River Subile and River Amanzuri all in the Ellembele District.
Before I could leave the scene, a passerby who directed us to the site was attacked by the residents who heckled and pushed down his motorcycle.
The Ellembele NPP Constituency Chairman, Samuel Kenya, who has been accused of engaging in galamsey denied any involvement in galamsey in an interview with Citi News but implicated the DCE for collecting 70 thousand from galamsey operators to allow their operation.
“We heard the boys were doing alluvial galamsey so we had a meeting with the DCE at the constituency office where he promised to address it. It was a week ago that two of our constituency executives joined the DCE and police personnel on a swoop at the place where they arrested some galamseyers and seized seven excavators.”
“Three days after that operation, we heard there was a meeting at the DCE’s office where he collected seventy thousand Ghana Cedis from the galamseyers to go back to the site. So ask the DCE where are the excavators seized. So two days later we got the police to lead us to arrest three of them and seized some of their things which we have video evidence for that. Today too we have heard the DCE has sent his boys to go and work.”
“If I have been given 10 thousand Ghana Cedis, I wouldn’t have gone to stop their activities earlier. It is not true. They are doing this because we sent Police to arrest them but we are determined to stop them in support of the President’s ban on galamsey, even if they have the backing of the DCE or the Regional Minister.”
The Ellembele DCE, Kwasi Bonzoh, admitted the pollution of the three river bodies including Ankobra but denied operating galamsey at mile-three and taken a bribe from illegal miners.
“Personally, I don’t even know mile-three and I’m not involved in galamsey, whether small scale or community mines and so I can’t have a concession. Those sites at Anwia and Teleku-Bokazo came to our attention the last couple of months and we had investigations into what was going on there. Two weeks ago, I led a team of Police and other members of the DISEC to undertake the massive operation.”
“We found about seven excavators on site but unfortunately, most of the operators had bolted before we got there. So we arrested some five people and put them in cell and then the next day, some people claiming to be the owners of the excavators showed-up. The decision that we took as DISEC was that looking at the level of damage that had been done, it is better to keep the machines there to reclaim the land before we bring them out and take the legal processes, so in the last week that is what is under supervision.”
“It’s serious havoc they have caused to the environment. The last time I went to the place I was almost in tiers. We are talking about almost 20 acres of land which have been completely devastated. We are talking about River Subile which is a historic river. This is a River where Dr. Kwame Nkrumah whiles at the back of his mother could tell his mum that, mum you’re stepping on a fish and low and behold the mother was stepping on a fish.”
“It is a very historic river which has a huge tourism potential as it runs just behind the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum at Nkroful. As an I speak, we have teamed up with World Bank to give it a facelift to attract tourists but that river as we speak is completely polluted. You cannot even use it to wash, so it is not something that anybody should take likely. I think we should tackle this issue very seriously both as a government and as a ruling party because the havoc is real.”
Though the Divisional Police Commander of Ellembelle, ACP Dodzi Hlodzi, denied political interference, he, however, admitted difficulty in stopping the galamsey. Meanwhile, residents are not happy with the extent of pollution of rivers in the area especially the Ankobra River.
