Civil society group, SEND Ghana has criticised the government’s 2025 budget allocation of GH₵1 billion for dredging polluted rivers, describing it as woefully inadequate to address the devastating impact of illegal mining.

Under the budget plan, the Ministry of Water Resources, Works, and Housing will oversee the dredging process to restore access to clean water. However, SEND Ghana argues that the funding falls short of what is required to effectively combat water pollution caused by illegal mining activities.

The acting Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Prof Nana Ama Klutse, has highlighted the worsening state of Ghana’s river bodies due to illegal mining.

Speaking on the condition of the Pra River, she noted, “We can clearly see the colour of the river is contaminated due to the illegal mining people are doing inside the water right from the Eastern Region section of the river which spreads downstream. Currently, we are here to collect water samples. The EPA has received several proposals on how to clean up polluted rivers across the country.”

Prof Klutse further explained that communities that once relied on the river for cooking and other domestic activities can no longer use it due to contamination.

"We have interacted with the people of the community and during our engagement, we got to understand that they used to use this river for cooking and other domestic purposes. Today, they are not able to use the river again at all for their domestic purposes," she said.