The Western Region Minister, Dr Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah has made a clarion call on residents in the region to help fight against illegal mining popularly known as galamsey.

He said an investigation conducted by the Western Regional Coordination Council reveals that residents are in full support of illegal miners whose actions are destroying water bodies in the region.

“Unfortunately, we are all aware that our water bodies are no go area and we expect communities to support our district chief executives and Regional minister to prosecute this agenda of making sure our waters are clear and can easily be processed for consumption."

He added that Tarkwa and Takoradi are battling acute water shortages due to activities of illegal mining.

Ghana Water Company, Limited keeps recording high turbidity and color parameters which sometimes go as high as 3,000NTU and 5,000HU respectively as compared to 54NTU and 200HU recorded in 2007 before the emergence of illegal mining activities on water bodies.

Significant volumes of raw water abstracted with treatment energy are released to go to waste as a result of excessive pollution resulting in revenue losses to the company.

Dr. Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah assured that the WRCC is poised to work now that the president has given them the mandate to prosecute the agenda against illegal miners.

"As for Western Region we will pursue this to the latter because are not only having this on the Pra, we are also having similar one on other water bodies.

“Very soon we are going to carry out the operation on the Waterbodies and land to flush illegal miners out” he added.