The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) has distributed 900 water pumping machines, seized from various galamsey sites, to nine regions across the country.

The machines are expected to be handed over to farmer cooperatives in those regions for further distribution to farmers, with the aim of increasing food production and supporting the implementation of the government’s Feed Ghana Programme.

Each beneficiary region will receive 100 machines.

These include the Upper East, Upper West, North East, Savannah, Northern, Greater Accra, Volta, Oti, and Bono East.

Court order
The sector minister, Eric Opoku, handed over the machines to the ministers of the beneficiary regions at a ceremony at Amrahia, Accra, yesterday.

He explained that the machines were confiscated by the task force and, following a court order for them to be handed over to MOFA to enhance food production in the country, the ministry took delivery of them a few days ago.

He added that the beneficiary regions were carefully selected because galamsey activities were not prevalent there.

“We wanted to prevent a situation where, after presenting this equipment to them, you would find them back on a site engaged in galamsey activities.

Therefore, we carefully selected the beneficiary regions.

All the regions to which we are providing these machines are areas where we have observed no illegal mining taking place,” he explained.

Mr Opoku stated that the equipment had been inspected by MOFA technical personnel, who found them suitable for use on farms.

Speaking on behalf of the beneficiary regions, the Northern Regional Minister, John Ali Adolf, gave the assurance that the machines would be used for their intended purposes and would never be returned to any galamsey site.

He said that, as regional ministers, they would periodically monitor the use of the machines.

“We wouldn’t want anyone, for any reason, to ever attempt galamsey activities in our regions.

These machines will be used to help farmers on their farms so that they can water crops across the seasons, especially during the dry season,” he explained.

Mr Adolf expressed gratitude to President John Dramani Mahama for his dedication to the fight against galamsey in the country.

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