The Defence Minister has called for the intensification and extension of ‘Operation Halt’ to all the tributaries of major river bodies to prevent the return of illegal miners to the water bodies.

Mr Dominic Nitiwul, updating the press on the second phase of the operation said the Ministry has come to the realization that the tributaries of the major river bodies have been destroyed more than the rivers themselves.

“River Pra, ... In fact for the River Offin they don’t have any tributary again, all of them are gone. The tributaries to the River Offin itself. River Offin is a tributary to River Pra but River Offin also have tributaries the small, small rivers that link to the rivers, all of them are gone,” he said on Tuesday.

He, however, called for the maintenance of the operation to flush the illegal miners from the tributaries of the river bodies so as to preserve it.

“They’ve (miners) destroyed virtually all of them (Rivers) so we believe that we should extend all these operations to all those tributaries to flush out people,” he said at the press briefing.

Mr Nitiwul, touching on the seized equipment’s from illegal miners noted that "further directives would be given for action to be taken on equipment’s that have been withdrawn from the mining sites."

The Defence Minister revealed that 28 excavators, 256 Chanfan machines, one dredging machine, 18 water pumping machine, two industrial pumps, 10 plastic fuel tanks, five canoes, one wooden accommodation building have been destroyed as part of the operation.

He added that the equipment were all seized within 100 meters of the various water bodies where a ban on mining has been placed.

The 'operation halt' began last month following a directive by President Akufo-Addo to the Ghana Armed Forces to ensure that logistics and persons involved in illegal mining on water bodies and forest reserves are prohibited in the country.