The two Nigerian galamseyers
The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has disclosed that a total of 187 persons have been jailed in connection with illegal mining in the Eastern Region since 2017.
Also, 43 new cases, involving 250 persons, are currently pending in the Court. The 250 persons include foreign nationals.
Speaking to the media on illegal mining, Mr Yeboah Dame said following a directive by the Chief Justice to designate High Court 3 and Circuit Court B, Koforidua, as the courts to deal with illegal mining cases, his office prosecuted all cases brought to its attention.
The 187 convicted persons include 29 Nigeriens, seven Nigerians and three Chinese. Many of them were tried and sentenced under the old Section 99 of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703).
According to A-G, Section 99(1) of Act 703 prescribed a punishment of a minimum fine of 3000 penalty units or imprisonment for a term of not more than five years for the offence of buying or selling minerals without a licence.
“For the offence of undertaking a small scale mining operation without a licence or acting in contravention of a provision of Act 703 in respect of which an offence is created, Section 99(2) of Act 703 stipulated a penalty of a minimum fine of one thousand penalty units or to imprisonment for a term not more than three years,” he explained.
In spite of this provision, he said, his office succeeded in ensuring that in 40 of the 48 cases, the maximum custodial sentences allowed under the law, or close to the maximum, were imposed on the accused persons.
New law
He disclosed, however, that 33 of the convicted persons were convicted and sentenced under the new the new Act (Act 995) between August 2021 and September 2022.
These persons, according to him, are currently serving various prison terms of 15 years, 20 years and 18 years, together with fines imposed in the various cases in which they were convicted.
“The passage of Act 995, spearheaded by the Akufo-Addo administration in 2019, enhanced the sentences for both buying and selling minerals without a licence and undertaking a mining operation without a licence to a term of a minimum 15 years’ imprisonment and maximum 25years for a Ghanaian, together with a fine of minimum 10,000 penalty units and not more than 15,000 penalty units,” he noted.
In the case of a non-Ghanaian, he explained, the Act 995 has enhanced the punishment for the same offences to a term of a minimum 20 years imprisonment and maximum 25 years, together with a fine of minimum 100,000 penalty units and not more than 350,000 penalty units.
Two Nigerians jailed 20yrs
Meanwhile, a Tarkwa Circuit Court has sentenced two Nigerians to 20-year prison terms for engaging in illegal mining.
The convicts, Ayodele Jackson and Benjamin Obin, were arrested at Bepoase, near Prestea in the Western Region. They pleaded guilty to the charges with the explanation that they were unemployed and hungry, and had only resorted to the galamsey as a means of surviving.
They told the court that they had only been indulging in the act for about three weeks before their arrest. They were thus convicted on their own plea.
Laying out the fact of the case, DSP Juliana Dadzie, told the court that a complaint was made against the accused by two officers of the Minerals Commission.
According to her, two staff of the Minerals Commission, on a routine patrol, spotted the accused with about 15 others engaging in illegal mining activities with two excavators, a washing plant and a water pumping machine at Bepoase.
Upon seeing the two officers, the miners fled, but the officers managed to apprehend the two expatriates. They were handed over to the Police, with the pumping machine and one excavator control board.
Judge Hathia Ama Manu described the circumstance under which they had entered into the illegal business as “unfortunate”. She added “the country is at a point where our water bodies, especially those of us in the Western Region, have been destroyed due to illegal mining.”
The Court ordered that after serving their sentences, the two men should be deported to Nigeria.
The court also ordered that the excavator, with its control board and the water pumping machine, should be confiscated to the state.
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