The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Abuakwa South in the Eastern Region, Nana Sarpong Adu Addo-Aikins Jnr., has disclosed that some people in the municipality are doing galamsey in their homes.
According to him, residents have not been supportive of the assembly in helping to fight the galamsey menace, something he describes as the biggest challenge to the fight against the canker.
Addo-Aikins, speaking on Onua TV’s morning show, Maakye, on Monday, August 17, 2026, expressed the assembly’s efforts to curb the menace, including making people do compulsory reclamation of lands where they are found engaging in the act.
“If you’re caught doing galamsey on the wayside, you’ll reclaim the land. I can give you video evidence of several places. Some people are doing the galamsey even in their homes,” he stated.
He revealed that the practice is not in his constituency alone, but in other places. “I don’t think it is peculiar to my district alone. So we had to go and arrest him for doing galamsey in his own house.”
According to the MCE, it took the visit of someone from Accra for the assembly to learn of the development, clearly showing how the residents are complicit in the act.
“What is painful is that, the community that is supposed to help us fight the menace all support the act. The place is surrounded by other house but no one reported them. It took somebody from Accra to visit somebody in the town to see this and send us video for us to go there. Meanwhile, they stay there with people,” he lamented.
The fight against illegal mining in Ghana continues to face major challenges, with authorities admitting that progress remains slow despite years of interventions by successive administrations.
Government and security agencies have in recent months intensified operations to clamp down on galamsey activities across mining communities, with taskforces seizing equipment, arresting suspects, and destroying excavators in the Ashanti, Western, and Eastern regions.
However, officials say the canker persists because of poor community support, weak enforcement, and the involvement of powerful persons.
Environmental groups have also raised concerns about the continuous pollution of rivers such as the Pra, Ankobra, Tano and Offin.
The Ghana Water Limited has also raised concerns about treatment costs going up, while farmlands continue to be destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Minerals Commission and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources insist the government remains committed to ending the menace.
They say new policies, including compulsory reclamation and stricter licensing, are being rolled out to deal with offenders. Civil society groups, however, argue that until there is political will and citizens take ownership of the fight, galamsey will remain a threat to the country’s water, food security, and health.
Tano North chiefs decry ‘galamsey’ destruction of River Tano
