President John Dramani Mahama has acknowledged that Ghana’s security forces are overstretched, posing a major challenge in the fight against illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

Speaking at a recent meeting with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), the President explained that troops are deployed nationwide to handle multiple security issues, including chieftaincy disputes, land conflicts, and border protection against terrorism.

“We have so many chieftaincy disputes all over the country, land disputes. You go to Sampa, we have troops there; you go to Gonja land, Savannah, there are troops there; you go to Bawku, there are troops there; you go to Nkwanta, our troops are there; and then our troops are also on the border to protect us from terrorism, and so they are spread thin,” he said.

Mr Mahama cautioned that diverting troops to focus solely on forest areas affected by galamsey, without increasing overall numbers, would undermine other critical security roles.

“If you take another batch and you go and put them in our forest, it means that we are committing most of our troops to other things other than crime prevention and keeping us safe,” he added.

He stressed that the fight against illegal mining is being coordinated through the National Inter-Agency Task Force on Illegal Mining (NAIMOS), which pools personnel from the police, army, national security, and other agencies.

“That is why NAIMOS is a combination of the police and the army, so all of them contribute troops, and we also have national security contributing, and all the other agencies,” the President explained. Mr Mahama also expressed optimism that more troops would soon strengthen the anti-galamsey forces, citing the drawdown of peacekeeping missions abroad.

“Happily, we have some additional troops coming with the winding down of some of the peacekeeping theatres, and so when they come, as many of them as possible, we will add them to the force so that we are able to dominate all the anti-galamsey sites and even to win the battle,” he said.