Illegal mining operators working at Kwaminiampa in the Prestea Huni Valley District of the Western Region have condemned opinion leaders in the area who have deceived them following the ban on all forms of illegal mining activities in the country.
The angry youth resorted to cursing the leaders for reportedly supervising the collapse of their business.
They have invoked deities to deal mercilessly with government officials and opinion leaders in the area who deceived them that they would be fighting for them when the campaign against the illegal mining menace in the country hit the area.
They have also included traitors in the security sector in the cursing spree for reportedly collecting money from them and turning their back at them when the taskforce clamped down their activities and caused mass arrest of their members.
The spokesperson of the group, Comrade Samora, claimed in an interview that the activities of campaigners against illegal mining have never bothered them because they had assurance from these leaders that they would protect them.
"They have caused the collapse of our work, hence the resolve to invoke deities to fight for us," he said.
Confirming the latest development to The Finder, the leader of the illegal mining activities, Comrade Samora said the action was to pay back the traitors in their own coin.
On August 28, 2017 the Operation Vanguard team, made up of the various security forces, destroyed machines and properties at Kwaminiampa and its surroundings in the Prestea Huni Valley District.
The cost of these machines and tools hitherto being used by the illegal miners to extract minerals, they claimed, runs into millions of Ghana cedis, but they were all burnt by the taskforce.
This hard-hitting approach adopted by the taskforce to stop the illegal activities appears not to have gone down well with the youth of the town.
"The operations carried out by the Vanguard provoked the galamseyers, that is why they have adopted the pouring of libation to curse the people who directed the Operation Vanguard team and all those involved," an opinion leader in the community confirmed.
The angry youth revealed that many security personnel, politicians and elders of the district reportedly collected huge amounts of money from them, all in the name of protecting their job.
"But it was all lies since Operation Vanguard stormed the area and ransacked the site. In fact, all our equipment and machines have been destroyed," they lamented.
Narrating what transpired in an interview, some of the illegal miners complained that they are not able to cater for their children since the collapse of the business.
The cursing spree orchestrated by the youth happened on September 1, 2017 at the three main roundabouts in Prestea town, and continued at Kwame Niampa.
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