Two Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), the Ghana Environmental Advocacy Group and A Rocha Ghana, have petitioned the Minister for Justice and Attorney General and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to make public the number of foreign nationals arrested for engaging in illegal mining (galamsey) in Ghana and their nationalities.
The two CSOs’ petition comes on the back of a report by an online portal, The Fourth Estate, that only two out of hundreds of Chinese nationals arrested for engaging in illegal mining from 2012 to date remain in Ghanaian jails.
“To read that those arrested end up quietly deported to their home countries with their loot without any further consequences while the state and local communities are left to reel under the weight of the environmental degradation they leave behind is both unconscionable and irresponsible,” the petition stated.
Find below the full demands in the petition:
a. Share with Ghanaians the number of foreign nationals arrested for engaging in illegal mining in Ghana and their nationalities.
b. Number of those arrested that are currently in jail
c. Number of those who have been released and for what reason (s)
d. Number of those deported and under what conditions
e. Number of such deportees who have returned and
f. Measures that have been put in place to ensure that new people coming do not engage in illegal mining in Ghana.
