A former Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, has stated that illegal small-scale miners, popularly known as galamseyers, are “back to their sites with vengeance” with the support of the Akufo-Addo-led government.

According to Alhaji Fueini, the government is deceiving Ghanaians into believe that it is fighting the galamseyers but secretly, it is rather helping galamseyers who are affiliated to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to continue mining.

The Member of Parliament for Tamale Central constituency described as wrong, the decision by the inter-ministerial committee taskforce on small-scale mining to ban both galamseyers and legal small-scale miners.

He further blamed the task force for creating an artificial need for the galamseyers to offer bribes, adding that the galamseyers sought cover from people who were close to the government to engage in their illegal mining activities at night.

Speaking on Class 91.3FM’s State of Affairs, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini told show host Blessed Sogah that: “They have created a situation where the most powerful people within the communities with attachment and sympathies to the current government could get cover under the darkness of the nights to do small-scale mining. The general refrain was when Operation Vanguard was invoked that they were providing protection for people sympathetic to the NPP government to engage in the illegality. As we continue to speak about clearing small-scale mining, some people were doing it with impunity.

“Galamsey is back with vengeance from the illegal miners, who have gotten some support from the political party’s apparatchiks; what government has been doing all along is cosmic, to try to tell the people of Ghana that they are working to solve the problem but they are not… The way the government is going about galamsey, definitely it will not succeed, because there are stakeholders, there are people involved, it’s not only the people on the field who are the galamseyers, the first line are the financiers, have we identified them?” he quizzed.

The lawmaker said the government has failed in its fight to curb the activities of galamseyers, adding that the inter-ministerial taskforce on small-scale mining has performed abysmally.

The government, led by President Nana Akufo-Addo, in 2017, waged a war against galamseyers through a ban, in its bid to protect the country’s water bodies, which were being depleted by galamsey activities.

A joint military-police taskforce was set up by the government to arrest the illegal miners.