Tarkwa-Nsuaem MCE Intensifies War On Illegal Mining Activities ---As He Plans To Meet Miners And Gold Buyers Tomorrow
The meeting, the MCE noted would also afford opportunity for him to engage the miners and gold dealers/buyers in his jurisdiction to ask them to take up the fight against the manace in the municipality.
Freeman Koryekpor 
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Assembly in the Western Region, Mr. Benjamin Kessie, has announced to meet hundreds of miners and gold dealers/buyers at the Tarkwa Municipal Assembly Hall on Wednesday October 12,2022.
According to the MCE, the meeting would serve as a viable plaform to intensify education on the implications of illegal small scale mining activities compounded with the massive destruction caused to the water bodies, forest range reserves and environment by the illegal activities of miners.
The meeting, the MCE noted would also afford opportunity for him to engage the miners and gold dealers/buyers in his jurisdiction to ask them to take up the fight against the manace in the municipality.
"The miners themselves would be asked to take up the fight against irresponsible or illegal mining activities, and that if your friend miners are doing something illegally that is affecting the water bodies, forest range reserves and environment, l think the miners would caution their colleagues to prevent him from doing so and that this would ensure that there would be peace and unity in my jurisdiction.
"I am going to use the meeting to give the fight to miners and gold dealers in my jurisdiction to go to sanitise the system in their respective living communities so that they can also be in the business," Mr Kessie said these in an interview with Soireenews.com via telephone call on Tuesday October 11, 2022.
The MCE who doubles as the Chairman of Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Security Executive Committee (MUSEC) was sharply responding to the media publication being attributed to a Chief of Dompim-Pepesa, Nana Nyonwah Panyin IV that the Western Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, a Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Mr. George Mireku-Duker and a Municipal Chief Executive are into illegal small-scale mining.
Nana Nyonwah Panyin IV told the media on Monday, October 10, 2022, that he had incontrovertible evidence to implicate the trio.
He has subsequently dared the trio to sue him over the allegations he has made, stressing that already he had become the subject of threat following his resolve to root out galamsey from his jurisdiction.
"I know not of any company, but I know of the very people who are behind the operations of 'galamsey' in my area. First and foremost, the Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, is involved.
"The MP for the area, Tarkwa Nsuaem, Honorable George Mireku-Duker, is also involved, and the MCE, Benjamin Kessie, is also involved. I have told you I am not going to disclose my arsenals to you."
"They said they were going to sue, so let them sue. I'll let out my arsenals at the right time," the chief alleged.
"The situation keeps getting worse, and my heart is bleeding," the chief said when asked how he feels about the galamsey scourge.
But in a sharp rebuttal, the MCE stressed that "I want to tell the general public, the chiefs, queen-mothers, youths and stakeholders in Tarkwa Nsuaem municipality that I am not into galamsey and that l would the last person to engage in galamsey operations in the area,” he said in an interview with Soireenews.com.
Mr Kessie said he respects President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who appointed him the DCE including chiefs and traditional office holders in Tarkwa Traditional Council.
According to the MCE, he would be the last person to defy the order of President Akufo-Addo to go ahead and do illegal small scale mining that the President has been spending huge monies to fight against this menace in the mining prove communities in the country.
