There are reports of a major discovery of gold at the Elmina beach.
Reports
say scores of residents are scrambling for the so-called discovery
while some are carting away sea sand to their homes to protect their
expected booty.
Hundreds of people drawn from other regions across
the country have trooped to Elmina in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem
(KEEA) Municipality of the Central Region to engage in illegal gold
mining, popularly known as galamsey.
The people, between the ages
of 10 and 50, according to DAILY GUIDE information, started their
operations about a week ago when they discovered that the beach around
the castle and Ayisa, near the CG Elmina Cold store, which was
established to serve as a sardine processing factory, abounded in gold.
Sources
revealed that the gold discovery was made when some galamsey operators
who had come for a funeral in the area went to the castle and spotted
that the sand around the castle had glitter in it.
Other sources
hinted that the deposits could probably come from the dredging of the
Benya Lagoon which was deposited there when the lagoon was dredged about
four years ago.
DAILY GUIDE also gathered that Dredging
International, the company that dredged the lagoon, kept a section of
the workers from entering a particular area which they now suspected
might have contained the gold.
When DAILY GUIDE visited the place, persons from other mining areas in the country were busily washing the sand for gold.
The
paper also spotted some gold dealers from Tarkwa, Prestea and other
mining communities who had parked their cars to purchase gold from the
galamsey operators.
DAILY GUIDE further gathered that the number
of operators increased in the night as they used lantern and torch-light
in search of gold.
This reporter also observed that fishermen had
abandoned their fishing activities to join in the search for gold since
they claimed the fishing business was collapsing gradually due to the
ban on light fishing.
The operators threatened to clash with the police if they made any attempt to stop them from doing their lucrative business.
Some
fishermen have virtually abandoned their canoes and spend the night,
with their wives and children on the beach, digging and washing sand in
expectation.
“We are not going to sleep,” a fisherman told a Joy FM reporter.
One of the operators who spoke to DAILY GUIDE on anonymity claimed they made close to GH¢15 million a day.
He
further added that he sometimes took the gold to the Western Region to
sell as other buyers also trooped to the area to buy them.
In an
interview with the Omanhene of Edina Traditional Area, Nana Kodwo
Conduah VI, he cautioned the operators to put a stop to their activities
since it was destroying the area.
He lamented that his summon for
the operators to meet him at his palace to find out who gave them the
permission to do so did not yield any result.
He therefore asked them to cease operations as soon as possible or face the consequences.
When
contacted, the regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), Owusu Sekyere, said he only had the information on Tuesday
morning that illegal mining was going on at Elmina and sent some
officers to go and investigate the issue.
Mr Sekyere said the
officers had not reported at the office and could not comment on the
issue as at the time of filing this report.
He added that the EPA
was working in collaboration with many organisations such as the
Minerals Commission and the district assemblies, so they could not
comment on the issue until they got in touch with stakeholders.
From: Desmond K Dapaah, Elmina
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