A former legal adviser to Operation Vanguard has revealed that there were no laws governing the exercise when it was launched in 2017.
Ex-Captain Jamal Tonzua Seidu said the joint military and police task force set up by President Nana Akufo-Addo to combat illegal mining in various parts of the country had no legal mandate for at least one year until he was deployed to Obuasi.
This, he argues contributed to the operation’s failure to rid the country of illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.
“When I reported to my post, I spoke to a few seniors and asked them ‘What is the law on Operation Vanguard?’ and there was so much confusion. No one knew what the law on Operation Vanguard was. I asked again, ‘What is our mandate in all of this?’ at best all I was given the opportunity to see the operational order and what was written in there was ‘The Commander-In-Chief has tasked the Ghana Armed Forces together with the Ghana Police Service in a joint operation to combat illegal mining’ and that was it.
“So the non-existence of the law means the Operation Vanguard didn’t really know their jurisdiction, who they can arrest, and what to do when they made an arrest. Because given that it’s a matter of such serious importance, you’d want to have a sense of clarity on who does what? And how? And when? The military had to have their mandate so does the police,” he explained.
Ex-Captain Seidu made these revelations when he contributed to the topic “Galamsey Fight and Prof Frimpong-Boateng Report” on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday.
The legal practitioner further divulged that only one judge was sitting on all convictions made by the Operation Vanguard task force.
Mr Seidu said that the inadequate number of adjudicators created a lot of backlog on illegal mining cases.
“There was no legal office attached to the operation so I had to establish one and figure it out myself. So I reviewed the laws and called for crime officers from the task forces I asked them about their reports and I was informed that based on the mining laws they had apprehended over 3000 illegal miners and impounded some mining equipment.
“However, the convictions they’d made were less than 100. And at the time there was just one judge who was sitting on the cases and so there was a backlog and there were interferences and so many limitations,” he noted.
Considering these gaps in Operation Vanguard, the private legal practitioner believed that the operation was deliberately set up to fail.
Last week, an explosive report compiled by former Environment Minister, Prof Frimpong Boateng who was the chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) set up by President Akufo-Addo leaked into the public domain.
In the 2021 report to the President, Prof Boateng names senior government officials accused of active involvement in illegal mining locally called ‘galamsey’.
According to him, the ‘galamsey’ menace goes as high as the government seat, Jubilee House.
Government officials who have been named in the report have however refuted the claims by undermining the authenticity of the report which Prof Frimpong Boateng stands by.
