A member of the University of Ghana Mining Research Group, Dr John Kusimi has expressed his surprise at the unprogressive nature of the fight against illegal mining by the current administrative government.

According to him, since President Akufo-Addo initiated Operation Vanguard to fight the canker, he, was of the expectation that government would actively investigate the findings of the operation to prosecute offenders.

“I'm surprised that for two years now, the government or the President hasn't done anything much about it [fight against galamsey]", Dr Kumi stated in an interview on Newsfile, Saturday, April 29.

Although he acknowledged that government had established structures to fight galamsey, he was of the view that not much effort was being made to aid the fight to be successful.

“You see, the government, the president set up this body ministerial committee to investigate and stop this problem, this canker that is eating all of it. And, therefore, I expected that after the report was presented to the President, the President should have been able to investigate the veracity or otherwise of this report, find out what can be done about it.”

Also, he criticised the presidency's response, which described Prof Frimpong Boateng's report on galamsey as ‘mere hearsay.’

Dr Kusimi explained that the presidency had ample time to investigate the authenticity of the report instead of waiting for it to be leaked before responding to it.

He, therefore, emphasised that Prof Frimpong-Boateng's report needed to be acted on.

An explosive report compiled by former Environment Minister, Prof Frimpong Boateng, who doubled as Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), was leaked into the public domain last week.

In the 2021 report addressed to the president, Prof Boateng named some senior government officials as being actively involved in illegal mining.

The former minister also disclosed that galamsey menace went as high as the Jubilee House— the seat of the presidency.

However, the government officials who were named in the report have also come out to refute accusations levelled against them in the report.