The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Integrated Iron and Steel Development Corporation (GIISDEC), Williams Okofo-Dateh, has appealed for financial and logistical support to sustain the evacuation of abandoned illegal mining equipment from galamsey sites.

Okofo-Dateh made the appeal when he spoke to the media at the Akango galamsey site in the Nzema East Municipality of the Western Region over the weekend.

He was speaking during a national exercise by GIISDEC and the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) to retrieve abandoned equipment along the Ankobra River.

He said while the exercise was crucial to ridding the environment of hazardous iron and steel materials, it came at a significant cost to the Corporation due to logistical and human resource constraints.

“But this comes at a very serious cost. We have a lot of challenges in carrying out these things from the sites. We are renting equipment from outside the Corporation and it comes at a great cost,” he said.

Okofo-Dateh said GIISDEC lacked critical equipment, including cranes and low-bed trucks, needed to lift and transport heavy machinery from remote and difficult terrains where illegal mining activities had taken place.

“What we need is the support of the Ministry to assist us financially, help us with logistics to be able to carry out all these things. Sometimes you need a crane to carry these things onto the trucks but we don’t have it,” he stated.

He said the Akango site was considered one of the easier terrains compared with other galamsey sites the team had visited in the Eastern Region and other parts of the Western Region, where accessibility remained a major challenge.

“We need men to carry these things from the very deep, very dangerous places. This place is even considered to be one of the easiest places. The other sites are very difficult,” he said.

According to him, the Corporation also required additional personnel to manually move heavy metal scraps from valleys and riverbeds to accessible points for loading and transportation.

Despite the challenges, Okofo-Dateh said GIISDEC remained committed to executing its mandate of clearing scrap metals from mining sites to help protect water bodies and the environment.

He appealed to the government, through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, to provide the necessary funding and equipment to enable the Corporation to scale up the exercise nationwide.