Ghana’s Lands Ministry has disclosed that the Finance Ministry has made financial commitments to support a permanent, round-the-clock deployment of anti-galamsey operatives at illegal mining hotspots nationwide, with the rollout expected before the end of March 2026 a shift driven by the government’s own admission that periodic raids have failed to prevent the return of illegal miners.
Director of Communications at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Paa Kwasi Schandorf, disclosed the development in an interview on JoyNews on Wednesday, March 4, saying that the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has conducted three major operations within the past week alone. He confirmed that Lands Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah has authorised the full-scale permanent deployment strategy, and that the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gold Board, Samuel Gyamfi, has also provided assurances of institutional backing.
The candid rationale behind the shift is significant. The Ministry acknowledged that once NAIMOS leaves an area after a raid, local enforcement agencies have in some instances failed to maintain pressure, allowing illegal activity to escalate again. The permanent deployment strategy is a direct response to that enforcement gap.
NAIMOS has already zoned the country into seven illegal mining regions, further subdivided into 21 sectors, and has trained and begun deploying an initial batch of more than 400 troops to sensitive locations, with additional personnel to follow. Operations head Colonel Dominic Buah warned financiers and organisers of galamsey that they are “the first or prime enemies of the state” and would be treated accordingly, promising that NAIMOS would operate around the clock to make illegal mining a high-risk activity with no resting place.
The transition to permanent deployment is particularly targeted at high-risk zones along major rivers, where coordinated operations in January 2026 destroyed equipment, arrested foreign nationals, and disrupted entrenched illegal mining networks along the Ankobrah and Birim rivers only for operatives to be pulled out after each raid.
The permanent presence model, if sustained with the promised Finance Ministry funding, would represent the most significant structural shift in Ghana’s anti-galamsey enforcement since NAIMOS was established under the Mahama administration earlier this year.
