The National Alternative Employment and Livelihood Programme (NAELP) has provided jobs for 80,000 people whose lives were dependent on illegal mining and those who were likely to enter that trade.

Giving an update, one year into the programme in an interview with the Press in Accra, the Coordinator for NAELP, Dr. Louise Carol Serwaa Donkor said direct and indirect jobs have so far been created by the programme, with some permanent and others temporary.

She added that for the first module of NAELP, beneficiaries from the five endemic illegal mining communities have been deployed mainly into land restoration and reafforestation programmes.

She named some of these communities as Adinkra and Fufuo in the Ashanti Region, Akwatiakwaso in the Eastern Region, Akotom in the Western Region and Terchire in the Ahafo Region.

She noted that as part of the programme, some of the beneficiaries also helped to nurse and plant 20 million economic seedlings, an initiative which was anchored on the Green Ghana Project.

Apart from the job creation, Dr. Donkor said the programme was reclaiming 1,000 hectares of degraded lands at Bibiani Anwiaso and Bekwai Juaboso of Western North, Bosome Freho District in the Ashanti Region and Abuakwa South and Atiwa West of Eastern Region.

Last year, NAELP was launched by President Akufo-Addo as part of national efforts to curb the illegal mining menace otherwise known as 'galamsey'.

The other modules under NAELP are agriculture and agribusiness, apprenticeship and entrepreneurship, responsible, viable and sustainable small-scale mining as well as mine support systems.