Galamsey Taskforces Extorting Money – Yammin

Joseph Yammin

 

National Organiser of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joseph Yammin, has alleged that the task forces mandated to stop illegal mining are exploiting their positions to extort money from innocent and legally registered miners.

According to Yammin, the task forces have abandoned their core mandate and are worsening the illegal mining menace. He has, therefore, called on President Mahama to immediately disband all the task forces.

“I’m telling the President of the Republic, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, that as a matter of urgency, he should immediately order a stop to all operations of these task forces,” Yammin declared.

He argued that the activities of the task forces cannot be described as an attempt to fight illegal mining. Instead, he accused them of extorting money and creating more problems.

“The President should order the IGP and the Interior Minister that whichever task force is working should immediately halt all their operations,” he insisted.

Mr. Yammin made the remarks while addressing a gathering of miners in a meeting captured on video. Although the venue and time of the address could not be established by this paper, the video has since gone viral on social media, sparking heated debate about the credibility of government’s commitment to ending galamsey.

In his address, Yammin questioned the strange manner in which the task forces were operating. “Don’t we have legally registered miners in this country?” he asked, accusing the group of harassing licensed miners without justification.

Highlighting further inefficiencies, he queried: “Where do these task forces check the documents of miners? Where do they verify whether someone has a permit to mine or not?”

The NDC National Organiser stressed that many critical questions remain unanswered about how the task force conduct its duties, and called for a pause and a re-think.

“That’s why I’m asking the President to halt all operations and let us sit down to find a lasting solution to these problems,” he said.

He alleged that certain individuals were profiteering from the chaos while the real fight against illegal mining remained unresolved.

“Some people are making a lot of money, meanwhile we haven’t solved the problem at hand,” he lamented.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah, Kumasi

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