Vice Chair of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Peter Lanchene Toobu has proposed to government to increase the force strength of the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operation Secretariat (NAIMOS).
Speaking on TV3’s Hot Issues on Sunday, November 16, 2025, the MP for Wa West said the taskforce must be increased to thousand officers to effectively deal with illegal mining in the country.
“NAIMOS has been established to deal with enforcement component of our fight against galamsey. A 400-man force which I am proposing to His Excellency the President if he listening, I am proposing that we increase the force strength to a 1000,” he stated.
Peter Lanchene Toobu further urged government that aside raising the force strength of NAIMOS, the Secretariat must be retooled and resourced adequately to aid the fight against galamsey.
He suggested that a clearly defined mandate and timelines could outlined for NAIMOS to ensure its success in the enforcement component of the galamsey fight.
“And apart from a force strength of a 1000, let’s give them what they require.
“What is happening in the galamsey field, if we rate it to the level that this is destroying the country as we all agree, and you want the armed forces to get in there and do what they do best, raise it to a 1000, give them full retooling, give them enough resources and give them a mandate and give them timelines. For instance; Let’s give them from January 2026 to December 31, 2026.
“I’m sure that by the end of December 2026, we will be able to show the power of the Ghana Armed Forces and how useful they are in the fight against galamsey, very particular the enforcement component,” he added.
The lawmaker stressed that NAIMOS operations alone is not enough to deal with galamsey.
He said the Alternative Livelihood programme and the Responsible Cooperative Mining and Skills Development Programme should be augmenting the operations of NAIMOS such that once illegal miners are stopped, options could be available to prevent them from returning to the illegality.
“But if you use the Armed Forces to succeed in the enforcement component, we need to begin to talk about the Alternative Livelihood programme, we need to talk about the Responsible Cooperative Mining and Skills Development Programme.
“These two programmes should be following the NAIMOS’ success. When NAIMOS moves and they are very successful you don’t allow the land to lie fallow for years.
“When NAIMOS is succeeding, Alternative Livelihood Programme should be running, Responsible Cooperative Mining and Skills Development should be running alongside and gradually the mining that we want, legal mining as we call it will be continue to be there and the illegality of it will just disappear,” he said.
Commenting about the GHC150 million budget allocated to NAIMOS, Mr. Toobu described it as “too small” with hopes that the Finance Minister will reconsider the amount in the mid-year budget.
