Devastating illegal mining activities are rapidly encroaching on key public infrastructure in the Juaben Municipality, with operations now taking place dangerously close to the main road at the Akronwe-Wabiri intersection.
Despite the visible ecological and infrastructural threat, authorities in the Municipality claim their hands are tied due to a frustrating security jurisdictional loophole that is shielding the illegal operators.
During inspection by National Security officials led by the Deputy Regional Security Coordinator, Alhaji Abdullah Umaru Nje, the Municipal Chief Executive for Juaben, Eunice Ohenewaa Ansu, blamed a clash in police jurisdictions between Bekwai, Konongo, and her municipality for the ongoing failure to halt the operations.
According to the MCE, while the degraded lands administratively fall under the Juaben Municipality, police commands in neighbouring Bekwai and Konongo claim security jurisdiction over the area.
This overlapping boundary dispute has effectively blocked Juaben police from conducting regular patrols or executing arrests.
Worryingly, the MCE alleged that while police units from Konongo and Bekwai frequently patrol the area, their presence has done nothing to deter the miners.
She raised serious concerns regarding potential collusion, alleging that patrol officers from these external jurisdictions routinely visit the sites only to be sorted out by the miners and leave without making arrests.
The MCE expressed grave concern that the illegal miners showed zero fear in the presence of high-ranking security officials, continuing their operations unabated, a defiance she directly attributed to the compromised manner in which patrolling police have historically treated them.
The worst-hit area at the Akronwe-Wabiri intersection is part of a concession legally registered to a private firm, Charlie and Sons Mining Company Limited.
The land has been left severely degraded, with massive open pits posing a direct threat to the nearby roadway and passing commuters.
While the galamsey operations in Pemenase, another community within the municipality, are not situated next to major roads, officials noted that the environmental destruction there is equally catastrophic.
To break the deadlock, the MCE, in her capacity as the head of MUSEC, has made an urgent appeal to the Minister for the Interior.
She is requesting immediate ministerial intervention to resolve the security boundary dispute and formally hand patrol and enforcement authority to the Juaben Police Command.
This, she emphasised, is the only way the municipality can gain total security control and launch a decisive, uncompromised crackdown to permanently end the illegal mining menace in the area.
Meanwhile, the Regional Coordinating Council has suspended all mining activities in the Juaben Municipality for one month for an intensive reclamation exercise.
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