Galamsey Fight Set For Worse As Military Pulls Out For Police

The fight against illegal mining has just hit a worrying watershed for many people as the Military prepares to wash its hands off, starting tomorrow.

President Akufo-Addo as Commander-In-Chief, today ordered the Military to pull out of the fight, and WhatsUp News has it on authority that decamping from illegal mining sites will start tomorrow.

According to Jubilee House sources, the first withdrawal will happen in the Western Region, where soldiers will pack bag and baggage and leave the Operation Vanguard Taskforce base there.

Soldiers at the Operation Vanguard base in the Central Region will follow suit, and then finally in March, the Operation Vanguard base in the Ashanti Region will be evacuated.

In their stead, the Ghana Police Service is to increase its personnel numbers in these bases as the Police take full command of Operation Vanguard.

Already, members of the public who have had hint of the change in command are throwing their hands up in despair because of the Ghana Police Service’ notoriety for bribery and corruption.

Members of the public have especially become apprehensive because the reason the soldiers have been asked to pull out is because of bribery and corruption.

Indeed Operation Vanguard, a 400-personnel strong taskforce which was inaugurated by the President in July 2018, has been engulfed by scandalous corruption and bribery with the spiriting away of up to 500 excavators that had been seized by the taskforce still remaining a mystery.

It has since emerged that the Minister of Environment and Science, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, who is also the Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), actually operated as ringleader of an NPP mafia within government which diverted and distributed the excavators to party members so they can use them to mine seized sites and generate money for the ruling party.

The heart surgeon allegedly also shared gold and other things seized from illegal miners with party members as booty.

In respect of the military, it is alleged that personnel on the operation Vanguard team took advantage of their deployment to build barter systems with the illegal miners. They mostly provided protection for the illegal miners in exchange for money, rather than closed down illegal mining sites. One military officer is said to have been making up to Ghc45,000 every week from protecting illegal miners.

Sources at the Jubilee House confirm that such corruption is what has caused the order for the soldiers to withdraw and make way for the Police. But the Police are perceived as the worst of two evils in comparison to the military.

Critics are sceptical that the police would br any better as almost every corruption perception research that has been conducted in Ghana, the Police occupy the highest position as the most corrupt.