By Emmanuel Gamson, GNA
Takoradi, Sept. 13, GNA – The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has launched the “Operation Water Shield,” a sustained national enforcement campaign to protect Ghana’s major rivers, watersheds, and other critical water resources from the destructive effects of illegal mining.
The operation marks a shift from isolated raids to a sustained campaign designed to secure priority river systems from their source areas to downstream communities and water-treatment facilities.
The statement issued by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, said the operation would focus on enforcement mechanisms along some of the country’s most threatened river systems, including the Birim, Ankobra, Tano, Bia, Pra, and Offin Rivers, as well as affected sections of the Black and White Volta systems.
It said priority would also be given to strategic source areas and upper catchments whose degradation ultimately affected downstream water quality.
The statement indicated that the operation would be intelligence-led and conducted in collaboration with relevant security and state agencies.
It said its broader mission was to protect critical water bodies, deny illegal miners access to strategic river corridors, disrupt the networks that supported illegal mining, support investigations and prosecutions, and create the conditions for environmental recovery.
The statement said: “Operation Water Shield will pursue six principal objectives: protect strategic river source areas, deny illegal miners access to riverbanks and waterways, dismantle mining logistics networks, disrupt the criminal and financial structures that support illegal mining.
It will support the restoration of degraded water bodies, and establish enduring monitoring and enforcement systems to prevent miners from returning to cleared areas.”
The goal was to substantially degrade and contain illegal mining within protected watersheds, restrict the movement of heavy equipment into critical river systems, achieve sustained improvement in water quality, disrupt the networks financing illegal mining, and restore effective control over affected river basins, it added.
The statement warned that NAIMOS would ensure firm enforcement under the Operation Water Shield, and cautioned illegal miners operating on water bodies and riverbanks that their operations would be disrupted and their equipment seized, permanently immobilised, or otherwise dealt with in accordance with applicable laws and established procedures.
“Excavators, chanfang machines, water pumps, dredging equipment and other machinery used to destroy water bodies will remain key targets of enforcement operations,” it noted.
It, therefore, called on traditional authorities, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, equipment owners, communities, and the public to support the NAIMOS successfully execute the operation.
They could do that by providing credible information on illegal mining activities and individuals or organisations that financed, facilitated, or supplied equipment for illegal mining activities.
The statement said: “Operation Water Shield sends a clear message that Ghana’s rivers are not mining sites and they are not sources of water or dumping sites for wastewater from mining activities.”
It said NAIMOS would sustain pressure on illegal miners and the networks that supported them until critical water bodies and river corridors were brought under effective protection and conditions are created for their recovery.
GNA
Edited by Justina Hilda Paaga/Christabel Addo
Reporter: Emmanuel Gamson
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