The Eastern Regional Minister, Eric Kwakye Darfuor, has said several male galamseyers – illegal miners – are impotent because of the chemical substances they are exposed to.

According to the minister, cyanide used in illegal mining apart from contaminating water bodies and soil, also have negative health implications including sexual dysfunction hence most men in galamsey areas have reproductive health problems.

“One thing about cyanide is that it causes impotence among men. So wherever there is galamsey the men are impotent. But if you are able to give birth too, the child will have deformity, so if care is not taken we are annihilating Ghanaians, we are killing ourselves,” Mr. Darfuor said at an event at Akyem-Anyinam in the Eastern region.

He said records suggest that there were about 4,000 illegal Miners on the Birim River which stretches 170km from Akyem Apapam to where it joins river Pra.

Mr Darfuor stated though the Operation Vanguard taskforce has helped to arrest and prosecute some of the illegal miners, many are still on the Birim river mining.

A member of the Council of State Lt. General Joseph Boateng Danquah (rtd) bemoaned the adverse effect of galamsey, predicting that if it is not curbed now Ghana’s Cocoa may be rejected at the international market over cyanide contamination.