The Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation is yet to unravel the mystery surrounding the missing excavators announced by the sector minister, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng a few weeks ago.

The excavators were seized by the Operation Vanguard team from illegal miners.

Unofficial figures put the number of these seized earthmoving and auxiliary equipment used for illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) as 500.

Last week, the sector Minister, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, disclosed that some of the 500 excavators in the custody of the district assemblies, had gone missing.

"We are told that 500 (excavators) had been seized and given to the district assemblies but later on, when we went out to check, the figure was far less than that.....i cannot tell you exactly what but i can tell you it was far lower than the 500 put out....that was the case in most of the areas, so we sent people out there to talk to the district assemblies and we got Vanguard involved and most of them had disappeared," the Minister revealed.

Subsequently, Ekow Ewusi, the Central Regional Vice-Chairman of the NPP was arrested to assist in investigations after it was alleged that he sold some of the confiscated items from illegal miners.

Reacting to this on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’, the Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt Jnr wondered how excavators could go missing especially as they are not like guinea fowls to fly.

“Excavators don’t have wings to fly; they can’t fly like guinea fowls; they are heavy machines and so if 500 of them have been missing it is shocking. How can 500 excavators go missing?” he queried.