The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has announced plans to target the financiers, facilitators, and equipment suppliers behind illegal mining (galamsey) as part of a new sustained crackdown on activities destroying Ghana’s rivers and water resources.

This was contained in a statement by the secretariat as it launched Operation WATER SHIELD, a national enforcement campaign aimed at protecting major rivers, watersheds, and other critical water resources from illegal mining.

Unlike previous operations focused largely on miners and mining sites, NAIMOS said the new campaign will go after the wider networks that enable illegal mining to operate.

The Secretariat said the campaign will target “the criminal and financial structures sustaining illegal mining”, alongside the miners operating on riverbanks and water bodies.

It will also increase scrutiny of facilitators, unauthorised manufacturers of chanfang machines, and individuals or companies that rent or supply excavators, water pumps and other machinery for illegal mining.

According to NAIMOS, enforcement will be “firm, sustained and uncompromising, within the law.”

Illegal miners operating on water bodies and riverbanks are expected to have their operations disrupted, while equipment seized during enforcement will be immobilised or otherwise dealt with in accordance with applicable laws and established procedures.

The Secretariat said excavators, chanfang machines, water pumps, dredging equipment and other machinery used to destroy water bodies will remain key targets.

Operation WATER SHIELD, according to the secretariat, will focus on some of Ghana’s most threatened river systems, including the Birim, Ankobra, Tano, Bia, Pra and Offin Rivers, as well as affected sections of the Black and White Volta systems.

Strategic source areas and upper catchments whose degradation affects downstream water quality will also receive priority attention.

NAIMOS said the operation represents a shift from isolated enforcement exercises to a “sustained, intelligence-led campaign” targeting priority river systems from their source areas through to downstream communities and water-treatment facilities.

The campaign will be carried out in collaboration with relevant security and state agencies to deny illegal miners access to riverbanks and waterways, disrupt their logistics and financing networks, and support the restoration of degraded water bodies.

The Secretariat said its ultimate objective is to “substantially degrade and contain illegal mining within protected watersheds”, while restricting the movement of heavy equipment into critical river systems and disrupting the supply networks supporting illegal mining.