The government has announced that over 500 individuals have been arrested in the past five months as part of renewed efforts to clamp down on illegal mining, widely referred to as galamsey.

As part of the crackdown, authorities have unveiled a major land reclamation initiative aimed at restoring 10,000 hectares of environmentally degraded land.

Officials say the intensified operations are meant to reverse the ecological devastation caused by years of unregulated mining.

Yet, despite the surge in arrests, concerns persist about the effectiveness of the campaign, particularly due to the low prosecution rates that continue to undermine enforcement efforts.

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Speaking at a press briefing, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, lamented the justice system’s failure to secure convictions.

“From 2022 to 2024, out of 845 arrests we made, only 35 were prosecuted—just 4%—and that is really the challenge we had to face,” he stated, highlighting a major gap in the fight against illegal mining.

The Minister also pointed to political interference as a longstanding obstacle to proper regulation. He criticised a culture where mining licences were granted based on political connections rather than regulatory scrutiny.

“People were getting licences simply because they were politically connected... they would obtain them from Accra, go to mining communities, and wave them around—often this would be the first time locals had ever seen the supposed ‘investor’. All of that had to change,” he added.

President John Dramani Mahama, for his part, reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to combating illegal mining while promoting ecological restoration.

“The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, in collaboration with GoldBod and the private sector, will soon launch an ambitious project to reclaim 10,000 hectares of mined-out lands. Let us move from competition to collaboration,” the President urged.