Residents of Nyame Ani in the Amansie West District of the Ashanti Region have threatened equal punishment for persons behind the death of four natives who fell in a pit created by illegal miners.

Joy News has gathered tension is building up in the area after latest death involving a farmer who also fell in one such pit.

Communities in the district became war zones in 2014 when inhabitants rose up against some Chinese nationals who were believed to be illegal miners.

Member of Parliament (MP)-elect for Manso Nkwanta Constituency, Albert Joseph Quarm  told Joy News' Elton Brobbey that the situation might escalate if government fails to address it comprehensively.

He said his constituents are displeased with activities of illegal miners which they blame to be responsible for the pollution of water bodies and the destruction of their farms.

"If nothing is being done about it, they are going to take the law into their own hands," he reported the residents as saying.

Professor Quarm who would be sworn-in on January 6 as the new MP of the area said he visited some mining sites and was dissappointed with the destructive work of the miners there.

"A very big land about one square kilometer is being mined and the destruction there is too appalling," he said.

The activities of some Ghanaian miners collaborating with their Chinese partners, he said are to blame for the high spate of malaria cases in the St. Martin Hospital in the district.

"The dominant disease is malaria because of the open pits."

Asked what he would do differently when he is sworn-in, the entrepreneur said his first call would be to advocate for a review of the country's mining law.

"We have to check our permits [and] those who have abused them should have theirs revoked."