Out of the over 1,4000 illegal miners that have been arrested, only 10% have been prosecuted, Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Professor Frimpong Boateng has said.

Professor Frimpong Boateng, who is the Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Task Force on illegal mining, added that a number of machinery such as excavators have been seized and immobilized.

He made this disclosure at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, August 16, 2018.

“As at now, Operation Vanguard has arrested about 1,400 illegal miners and only 10% of these have been prosecuted. We’ve seized about 650 excavators and immobilized some machinery,” he stated.

The performance sheet of government's militarization of the fight against illegal mining revealed a 10% conviction rate after more than 1370 arrests.

Of the 247 Chinese nationals that were arrested, only 22 have been convicted.



Operation Vanguard

Government launched Operation Vanguard in 2017, with 400 security men made up of personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) and the Police Service deployed to the Ashanti, Eastern and Western regions.

The teams were tasked to stay at their assigned regions to eradicate all forms of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.