The restriction covers the Black Star Square and its surrounding areas and applies to all types of drones, whether recreational or commercial.

This measure is aimed at ensuring the safety and security of visiting guests, dignitaries, and the general public during the high-profile event.

The Ministry has urged drone operators to cooperate fully with the directive and adhere to all security protocols to guarantee a safe and secure environment for the inauguration.

The drones were acquired in 2018 for three million US dollars, according to the then Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John-Peter Amewu.

The then Secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue, in July 2018 acknowledged the arrival of the drones.

“The drones have arrived in the country to support the president’s position that we have to do mining responsibly,” he said in interviews with the media. “Each district will have one, and the regional coordinating councils will have one so they can monitor the district mining committees. There is going to be a monitoring center at the office of the president too.”

Numerous images of the monitoring center were taken and published, but there was no photographic evidence to prove that the drones were actually in the country – as is usually done when the government acquires fleets of vehicles or other machinery.

Only three drones were seen in the images taken of the monitoring centre. It took a month after Mr Bissue’s comments for the chairman of the IMCIM, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, to provide evidence that some drones had actually arrived in the country. Even so, only three of the drones (out of a total of 200) were put on display.

“These are some of the drones that we have been able to acquire,” Prof. Frimpong- Boateng, who was also at the time the Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, said.

“One has thermal sensors that will allow us to deploy in the night because we had a situation where the team did not operate in the night because they did not have night vision equipment.”

Hopes were raised only to be dashed as it appears the drones were hardly ever used as part of the fight against illegal mining.

“I was the only journalist who was on the team. And at that time, they (the taskforce) were asking whether they can get the drones because where we were going, they needed to fly the drones to know where the people [illegal miners] were,” Mr Donkor says. “There was no response from Frimpong-Boateng. If there were drones, he would have given it to them.”

The only time he said he saw a drone being used was the two weeks he spent with the Galamstop Taskforce in 2019.

He recalls that the drone, a white Phantom 4 Pro, was used by the taskforce at Manso-Tontokrom in the Amansie South District of the Ashanti Region and in the Taabosere section of the Upper Wasaw Forest Reserve in the Western Region.

“I was on the field with the team at the time they said they had bought drones. I saw one drone being used. That was the only drone I saw them use. Aside that, I never saw any other drones,” he says.

Although government communicators have consistently mentioned drones as part of the intervention to fight illegal miners and ward them off the country’s forests, the Forestry Commission recently announced that illegal miners have destroyed at least 34 forest reserves.

The commission’s data also shows that almost 5,000 hectares of forest cover have been destroyed.

As of 2017, the Forestry Research Institute pegged the cost of reclaiming a hectare of land degraded by illegal mining at GH₵ 225,000.

When The Fourth Estate reached out to Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, he declined to speak on the issue.

But he pointed out that after the IMCIM was dissolved, the National Security Ministry took possession of the drones, without indicating the exact number of drones handed over to the National Security Ministry.

However, a high-ranking official of the national security ministry told The Fourth Estate off record that he doesn’t know about the existence of the drones.

As wanton illegal mining continues to raise alarm in almost every sphere of Ghanaian life, key government agencies are using national security to evade questions about the whereabouts and use of 200 costly drones bought to track down illegal miners and halt their operations.

The drones were acquired in 2018 for three million US dollars, according to the then Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John-Peter Amewu.

The then Secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue, in July 2018 acknowledged the arrival of the drones.

“The drones have arrived in the country to support the president’s position that we have to do mining responsibly,” he said in interviews with the media. “Each district will have one, and the regional coordinating councils will have one so they can monitor the district mining committees. There is going to be a monitoring center at the office of the president too.”

Numerous images of the monitoring center were taken and published, but there was no photographic evidence to prove that the drones were actually in the country – as is usually done when the government acquires fleets of vehicles or other machinery.

Only three drones were seen in the images taken of the monitoring centre. It took a month after Mr Bissue’s comments for the chairman of the IMCIM, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, to provide evidence that some drones had actually arrived in the country.

Even so, only three of the drones (out of a total of 200) were put on display.

“These are some of the drones that we have been able to acquire,” Prof. Frimpong- Boateng, who was also at the time the Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, said.

“One has thermal sensors that will allow us to deploy in the night because we had a situation where the team did not operate in the night because they did not have night vision equipment.”

Hopes were raised only to be dashed as it appears the drones were hardly ever used as part of the fight against illegal mining.

For example, Erastus Asare Donkor of JoyNews, who has extensively investigated illegal mining and has on numerous occasions toured with the illegal mining taskforce (Galamstop), says he hardly saw a drone in use.

“I was the only journalist who was on the team. And at that time, they (the taskforce) were asking whether they can get the drones because where we were going, they needed to fly the drones to know where the people [illegal miners] were,” Mr Donkor says. “There was no response from Frimpong-Boateng. If there were drones, he would have given it to them.”

The only time he said he saw a drone being used was the two weeks he spent with the Galamstop Taskforce in 2019.

He recalls that the drone, a white Phantom 4 Pro, was used by the taskforce at Manso-Tontokrom in the Amansie South District of the Ashanti Region and in the Taabosere section of the Upper Wasaw Forest Reserve in the Western Region.

“I was on the field with the team at the time they said they had bought drones. I saw one drone being used. That was the only drone I saw them use. Aside that, I never saw any other drones,” he says.

Although government communicators have consistently mentioned drones as part of the intervention to fight illegal miners and ward them off the country’s forests, the Forestry Commission recently announced that illegal miners have destroyed at least 34 forest reserves.

The commission’s data also shows that almost 5,000 hectares of forest cover have been destroyed.

As of 2017, the Forestry Research Institute pegged the cost of reclaiming a hectare of land degraded by illegal mining at GH₵ 225,000.

When The Fourth Estate reached out to Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, he declined to speak on the issue. But he pointed out that after the IMCIM was dissolved, the National Security Ministry took possession of the drones, without indicating the exact number of drones handed over to the National Security Ministry.

However, a high-ranking official of the national security ministry told The Fourth Estate off record that he doesn’t know about the existence of the drones.

Between the two of us, the total number of drones acquired by the Inter-Ministerial Committee, I don’t know. And nobody within the Ministry of National Security would know,” the source said.

“National Security would never do that. We were not part of the procurement. We wouldn’t know the dates the drones arrived in the country. The dates and locations the drones and where they were deployed to, we wouldn’t know. The total cost of the drones, we don’t know.”

For close to two years, from October 2022 to May 2024, The Fourth Estate persistently sought to find out the whereabouts of the drones from three ministries and the Office of the President but got no answers.

Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee’s reaction

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation had no idea where the drones were. The Ministry of National Security never responded directly to The Fourth Estate’s request under Right to Information provisions.

The Right to Information Commission, however, told The Fourth Estate that the Ministry of National Security had informed the commission that the release of the requested information would threaten the security of the state.

And so, the questions linger: How many drones were acquired, where are they now and how are they being used in the national effort to clamp down on illegal mining?

A former deputy chairperson of the Defence and Interior Committee in Parliament, Ophelia Mensah, told The Fourth Estate that the Committee was not privy to the transaction to buy the drones.

“The [only] transaction I know was to get fighter jets for the military,” she says. “But these drones [to] fight against galamsey, no, I’m not aware of it.”

The ranking member for the Committee, James Agalga, corroborated what Ms Ophelia said.

“I can confirm that it never came to Parliament and it is therefore worth investigating,” he says.

Honorary Vice President of IMANI Africa, Bright Simons, also has doubts about the implementation of the initiative to use drones in the fight against illegal mining.

“Based on our discreet enquiries in the security services, we can confidently say that the drones and their supporting control room infrastructure and software were not even properly commissioned and no one can provide a detailed inventory or even an account of where they are now,” he says. “We can safely conclude that the entire approach has now been abandoned and the project is dead in the water.”

Mr Simons described the government’s decision to use drones to fight illegal mining as an “utter failure,” accusing the Akufo-Addo administration of deliberately hiding all the contracts about the purchase of the drones under the folds of national security.

Another person who has raised doubts about the supposed acquisition of the drones, is the founder of the Media Coalition Against Illegal Mining, Dr Kenneth Ashigbey.

He has many questions: “If we have the drones, how come we don’t know when people get into the forest reserves? How come we don’t have drone footage of Akonta Mining in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve? So, where are the drones?”

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The drones, worth millions of cedis, are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance technology to help identify flood and waste hotspots and monitor development control.

At the distribution ceremony, Project Coordinator Dr. Ohene Sarfo sounded a warning.

“These drones are not for weddings and funerals! They are expensive tools to help build a resilient community, and must be handled with care,” he cautioned.

Each drone has been insured for one year, after which the assemblies will take over the responsibility.

Minister of State at the Local Government Ministry, Osei Bonsu Amoah, emphasized the government’s commitment to tackling flood and waste management.

“We are dedicated to finding solutions to these pressing issues, and this drone technology is a game-changer” he said.

The 17 beneficiary Assemblies have received training from the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority to operate the drones efficiently.

Chief Director of the Local Government, Amin Abdul-Rahaman, stressed the importance of responsible use and proper maintenance.

The Dean of the MMA, George Cyril Bray also commended the government for the initiative and urged the assemblies to use the drones for their intended purpose.

With these drones, the MMAs are poised to take flood and waste management to new heights, and create a more resilient and sustainable community for all.

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Raytheon UK said the “advanced laser integration centre” would open next year and would help meet growing demand for laser weapons designed to destroy small attack drones.

The firm said the war in Ukraine had highlighted the threat they posed.

The centre will focus on the testing, fielding and maintenance of defensive high-energy laser (HEL) weapons.

Raytheon’s anti-drone lasers are small enough to be fitted to military vehicles.

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Last year, Raytheon was awarded a demonstrator contract to provide a high-energy laser weapon system to the UK Ministry of Defence, to be installed on the UK Wolfhound land vehicle, the company said.

It claims that “demand is spiking for cost-effective lasers” able to defeat “asymmetric” threats from drones, rockets and mortars.

Small commercial drones, which the weapons are designed to defend against, have demonstrated their military effectiveness in Ukraine, directing and correcting artillery fire and, in some cases, being modified to carry explosives.

Speaking from the Farnborough Airshow, Annabel Flores, Raytheon’s president of electronic warfare systems, told the BBC some of the additional interest and demand for the technology was as a result of how drones had been used in the conflict.

“The thought is coming into how do you defend against them effectively, making our ongoing conversations with customers much deeper and much more pronounced,” she said.

HEL weapons had advantages she added, particularly the cost per shot.

While military ordnance can be very expensive, drones and quadcopters are in the £84 range, she said.

Once connected to a power supply, she said, the system could keep running.

However, the weapons do not resemble the lasers of popular sci-fi, as their drone-destroying beams are invisible.

“Hollywood makes it look very, very interesting and very dramatic. And this is a little different. It can look a little anti-climatic,” Ms Flores said.

Raytheon says the laser system has 20,000 hours of operational use, but Ms Flores would not be drawn on whether the system had been “used in anger” yet.

Initially the number of jobs created by the new centre is likely to be small, but could increase to potentially “hundreds of jobs”.

That will depend on many factors of course, but the company believes that high-energy lasers could make up as much as 30% of of future air defence infrastructure.

While the firm would not be drawn on how much it would ultimately invest – citing pending financial results – it has already spent about £20m developing the Livingston site, the BBC understands.

It said the announcement was a “statement of faith” in both the UK’s engineering sector and the important nature of the technology.

Project AirSim is, in effect, a flight simulator for drones, which companies can use to train and develop software controlling them.

It makes it possible for test flights in places that would be too risky in reality, such as near power lines.

And it means, Microsoft says, that millions of flights can be simulated in seconds.

For example, companies can virtually see how the vehicle flies in rain, or how strong winds might affect its battery life.

In a statement announcing the launch, Microsoft’s Gurdeep Pall said that it showed “the power of the industrial metaverse – the virtual worlds where businesses will build, test and hone solutions, and then bring them into the real world”.

The firm envisages the tech being used to train the AI systems which fly autonomous air vehicles from air taxis to delivery drones.

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The Seattle software giant has a long history in virtual flight – this November its Flight Simulator game will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

Project AirSim’s history is more recent, growing out of an open-source project of the same name that was used by a number of researchers.

Microsoft has announced that it will retire that project.

Users will still have access to the original open-source project’s code, the company told the BBC, but it will be archived, and instead the firm will focus its efforts on the new product.

The new proprietary platform, the company says, contains more out-of-the box features, and requires less technical knowledge to use.

However, Microsoft says its goal is to offer a free option, and says it will provide more information as the general release date approaches.

The project runs on Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure.

US firm Airtonomy was given early access to the platform.

Airtonomy uses drones to inspect infrastructure, such as wind turbines and power lines.

Chief executive Josh Riedy told the BBC that previously a “crew of three individuals repelled down those blades – the towers are at a height of 80m (262 ft), so not only was it a nearly a day-long job for three individuals, safety is certainly a consideration”.

Now the drones fly autonomously and can be controlled by only one person on the ground. “They simply need to know how to put batteries in a drone, and push a button,” he said.

The flight routines that enable this are developed in the virtual environment of Project AirSim, and Mr Riedy says a big advantage is the “simulated environment allows us to make mistakes” when working with critical infrastructure.

It also allows developers to imagine “what if” scenarios that would be unsafe to test in real life – such as what happens if a drone’s vision is obscured.

Microsoft hopes that it could also be used by civil aviation regulators to test systems – seeing how the drone performs in extremely heavy rain, or copes with a loss of positioning data.

As well as libraries of digital environments, developers will also have to access already trained AI “building blocks” which the firm hopes will reduce the expertise needed to develop systems.

Ashish Kapoor, creator of the original open-source AirSim, said in a statement that he hoped data gathered on the new platform would help put “many more vehicles in the sky, helping to monitor farms, inspect critical infrastructure and transport goods and people to the remotest of places”.

Dmytro is fighting that second, largely unseen war. He leads a unit of just 10 soldiers who form Dnipro 1’s drone intelligence unit. Dmytro says he prefers to call it “IT guys who fight”. All of them are volunteers. Most of them have a background in information technology, and knew each other before the war started.

On a mobile phone one of the team shows us drone footage of the Russian targets they’ve already destroyed – their “greatest hits”.

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Dmytro lists them: “One tank, three or four artillery guns, two mortar positions and five or six ammunition dumps.”

“Good results for just 10 people,” he says, before breaking into a smile. They’ve already been fighting in Rubizhne and Severodonetsk – cities captured by the Russians. Now they’re getting ready to defend Slovyansk.

“I think Slovyansk will be the next big target for Russia,” says one of his team. I ask whether he thinks they’ll be able to halt the Russian advance. “Sure,” he says.

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been used widely in other wars, but not on this scale. They’re key weapons for both Russia and Ukraine. Both sides have larger military drones – like Russia’s Orlan-10 or Ukraine’s famous Bayraktar, a Turkish-made drone. They’re often more expensive and complex and can be easier to target and shoot down.

The most ubiquitous drones in this battle are commercial drones, the kind you or I can buy off the shelf. They’re also cheap and easy to replace.

Both sides are using them to spot the enemy’s positions and then help direct and correct their own artillery fire on a target. But these small drones are also being fitted with explosives.

Behind the frontlines, near Slovyansk, a team of soldiers from the drone intelligence unit show us how they deploy them.

They unpack the small, hand-held, DJI mavik, from a box and carefully fit a small explosive to it. Small commercial drones can carry munitions of between 200g and 500g (7-17oz). A larger one can carry a charge of up to 800g. They build the bombs at a workshop back at their base using a 3D printer to make the fins, to help the bomb glide to its target.

Dmytro says it’s a job for his “smartest guys”. They also study open source intelligence and track communications.

But as we watch the team prepare to launch the drone near Slovyansk, there’s a reminder this can also be a very dangerous game of hide-and-seek. The troops hear the sound of an aircraft in the distance. They tell us to take cover under some trees. Both sides are looking out for each other’s drones and their operators. Luckily, this time, it turns out to be a Ukrainian helicopter.

In the early days of the war, they tell me Russia was able to use “Aeroscope” – a drone-detection platform that can identify UAV communication links in real time. It meant Russian forces could quickly find the location of the drone and its pilot.

The Ukrainian soldier operating the drone says they’ve now learnt how to block it, but he adds the Russians still “have a lot of stuff for blocking the drones and blocking our signal”. So far they’ve lost about five of these small commercial drones.

Russia not only outguns and outnumbers Ukraine’s forces but it has plenty of experience in electronic warfare too. Russia has been blocking and jamming Ukraine’s military communication systems.

The state’s Commissioner for Budget and Economic Planning, Femi Ajayi, disclosed this at the weekend during the breakdown of the 2021 Appropriation Law with a budgetary provision of N109.666 billion.

He said the state government projected N550 million to purchase the drones as part of plans to tackle armed robbery, banditry and kidnapping.

He added that N1.4 billion has been set aside to fund the Ekiti State Security Network code-named ‘Amotekun Corps’ for the security outfit to live up to its responsibility.

He said the government budgeted N8 billion for social services, covering education, health, gender empowerment, social security and other pivotal subsectors critical to the growth of the economy.

The debate on drones to fly blood and other medical supplies
may have been definitely supplanted by some other, equally disturbing, news and
before we are aware, the deal is done and dusted.

That has been our story anyway, it has always been.

Ghana is in short supply of many things including blood and
medical supplies but it appears those two commodities are secondary to “brains”.

That is why if you asked me about my views on the “medical drone contract”, I will tell you I approve of drones as a means of carrying brains for distribution and not as a means of carrying blood and other medical supplies.

Perhaps, I should illustrate my point better: Parliament –
the people’s representative, has voted on our behalf to approve the contract,
fair enough.

Of the many reasons cited by the government on why Ghana needs the deployment of drones to supply blood and other medical supplies, was the claim that a study on the medical delivery system in the country backs the need for a drone system.

Now, this is where it gets to absurd levels: while a scientific study, as a basis for any project, is laudable, the people’s parliament – your representative and my representative didn’t find it necessary to call for such a study, no!

Who does that? I doubt if there is any parliament in the world that will approve such a monumental deal that costs its country’s kitty a whopping $12.5 million over four years without calling for the primary basis on which the approval is being done.

I say these things not because I believe in the existence of any such study but because I am a man who is in a constant pain by, either, the deliberate refusal by our representatives to ask the right questions or their lack of capacity to do so.

If you are reading this and you probably don’t believe in my quest for drones to fly and distribute brains, just pause and google the phrase, “ambulance drones video”.

In that video, you will find that there is a more efficient way to deplore drones for medical purposes where a simple phone call to designated drone centre can help take a patient through the necessary medical procedures.

Just juxtapose that with drones that carry blood and other medical supplies to a village where there are no health officials to administer them and with no storage facilities to hold the blood supplied.

Watch the deployment of an ambulance drone video below:

Do you still think we don’t need drones to fly and distribute brains?

Unfortunately, this is the irony of our time as a country; we have so much money to spend on the wrong things for reasons that God himself above will struggle to comprehend.

This country’s sovereignty resides in the people and if the people’s representatives can’t protect the sovereign people’s interest, then what is left of us in nothing but people who have signed off their rights.

In the meantime, I will want any state official, be it, from the Health Ministry or the Ghana Health Service, to prove me wrong with the existence of any such study and while at it, also tell Ghanaians why they chose drones that fly medical supplies and not one that is an ambulance by itself.

According to Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, the initiative will allow equal access to health care and blood to every Ghanaian in the country.

“This initiative will help improve health care delivery, sustain patients in emergency situations and serve as first aid to save lives”, he noted.

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Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosiisen Thursday, he noted that the drone service was very necessary because it will save time, money as well as offer better health care to every Ghanaian.

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“The drones will operate 24 hours a day from 4 distribution centres across the country. The distribution centres will stock 184 lifesaving and essential medical supplies including emergency blood and oxytocin to save women’s lives in childbirth. Postpartum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death.

“Emergency medicines for surgeries, severe infections, antivenins and anti-rabies, diabetic emergencies, extremely high blood pressure emergencies.

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Dr Nsiah Asare added that “Ghana’s emergency medical drone delivery service will save tens of millions of cedis by eliminating the need for expensive emergency trips to pick up health care products and by avoiding wasteful overstocking of products at health facilities,” he stated.

According to him, the drones, when acquired, can also help the country monitor and deal with the incidents of illegal logging in the country’s forest reserves.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Amewu said the plan to use drones is part of the government’s grand strategy to effectively clamp down on illegal miners whose activities have devastated the country’s land and water resources.

“These are quite complex, high-level specification drones that we want to apply,” he said.

Mr. Peter Amewu first announced the government’s plans to procure the monitoring devices in March 2017, but received some backlash from the public over the $3 million cost.

But Mr. Amewu said the specification of the drone merits the cost. He told Richard Dela Sky that the drones had special features that would greatly boost the anti-galamsey efforts.

“These drones are non-visible when they are up in the air. They are sound-free and they can zoom down to about five meters even at a height of about 3, 000 kilometres. It can go to as far as about 27, 000 feet above sea level. It can do a lot of things and it’s very complex,” he said.

“We want to do things properly. We are looking at alternative ways of financing the two sets we’re getting. The batteries can last for about 14 hours. We can use it for a variety of projects, like the protection of our forests,” he added.

Mining ban may be extended by 3-months – Amewu

Meanwhile, Peter Amewu has said that the government may extend the current ban on small-scale mining by at least 3 months.

He said although there have been some positive gains from the ban currently in force, it is unsatisfactory.