President John Mahama has assured Members of the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC) of government’s commitment to combating the menace of illegal mining (galamsey) in the country.

He said the Government had made significant progress in reclaiming forest reserves, which illegal miners had infiltrated.

The President made this known during a courtesy call on him by a 20-member Delegation of the GCBC led by its President, Reverend Matthew Gyamfi, who is also the Bishop of the Sunyani Diocese.

The Bishops were at the Presidency to congratulate the President on his victory in the December 7, 2024, general election and to present a litany of issues of national concern for his attention, such as the menace of illegal mining, the education reform, governance and electoral reforms.

President Mahama said combating galamsey was a very complex fight. Unfortunately, because of the lack of economic opportunity, many of the nation’s unskilled young people had found illegal small-scale mining an easy avenue to gain employment and earn an income.

He said it was estimated that more than 1.5 million Ghanaians were involved in that sector, either in artisanal small-scale mining, or in working for small-scale mining companies or doing just what they call galamsey.

He said there was a distinction between small-scale mining and illegal mining, stating that small-scale mining by itself was not unlawful.

He said small-scale mining was recognized by the law, which was reserved for only Ghanaians.

He said the complication had been the foreigners who invaded the small-scale mining space and the new equipment that they brought into the country, which was able to destroy a huge acreage in a short time.

The President said in the past, the nation’s young people would use simple tools such as pickaxes and shovels to dig somewhere small and get a few nuggets of gold and sell to make some money.

He said the foreigners had brought excavators and chanfan machines into mining space, which was the beginning of the nation’s troubles.

He said as result of the use of excavators and chafan, the nation started to see large-scale degradation of the environment.

President Mahama said Ghana had 288 forest reserves, which were declared reserves officially and that out of the 288, 44 of them had been encroached upon by illegal miners.

The President explained that the rest of the 244 forest reserves were not encroached upon by illegal miners because there was no gold in those forest reserves.

“But the 44 that have gold under those trees are attractive magnets for illegal small-scale mining. So of this 44, there were nine that were designated red zones.”

The nine red zones forest reserves have gold under the trees, which makes them attractive to illegal miners.

“The security services couldn’t go into them. The forest guards could not go into those reserves because the people there were armed to the teeth, and anybody who went you were in danger of their life. Several journalists went and were, you know, giving a severe beating and almost lost their lives.”

President Mahama said the Government decided to take it step by step as part of efforts to rid the nine red zones forest reserves of illegal miners.

“So for the nine red zone forest reserves, we identified them, and I’m happy to say that seven of them have been cleared, and the illegal miners in those forest reserves have been taken out.”

He said in the past what had happened was that when the security services had cleared the reserves of illegal miners, they could not stay there forever and as soon as they move out, the illegal miners come in again.

President Mahama said the Government, as part of efforts to keep the reclaimed forest reserves safe from illegal miners, had adopted a method where after they had finish clearing the reserves, they were able to keep a force there to deter the illegal miners and had a rapid deployment force on standby, so that if they see anybody coming into the reserve, they call for reinforcement, who would go there immediately and seize the excavators.

He said the anti-galamsey task force had seized almost 200 excavators and that they had destroyed many chanfan machines found mining on the river.

Rev Matthew Gyamfi, President, GCBC, presented to the President a litany of issues of national concern for his attention, such as the menace of illegal mining, educational reforms, governance and electoral reforms.