Burning Of Excavators Was Without Legal Basis – Operation Vanguard Legal Advisor

The legal advisor for Operation Vanguard, ex-Captain Jamal Tanzua Seid, has said that although there are laws on mining in Ghana, the burning of excavators was not explicitly covered by any such legislative framework.

Operation Vanguard is a presidential initiative aimed at ending illegal mining activities otherwise referred to as ‘galamsey’ in the country.

According to him, the legal framework at the time did not support the burning of excavators, thus if persons whose excavators were burnt had taken on the government, they had the legal basis to do so.

“There has always been a constitution and we have always had mining laws, and these are clear on what is permissible and what is not permissible. So, I would say that there was a legal framework, but as to whether that framework supported the specific operation that was being mounted, I would say it was inadequate,” he said.

“Some equipment were burned in Tamale. I don’t know what the affected persons did, but they would be within their rights to seek appropriate remedies in terms of the violation of their property rights,” ex-Captain Seid added.

He further noted that the entire Operation Vanguard exercise was not well thought-through.

“The operation itself was not well thought-through. The evidence is what has become of it. You would find out that the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces would deliver a speech and on the basis of that speech, the joint taskforce is established and the mandate of the taskforce was to immediately stop illegal mining operations. That’s very vague. We already have regulatory institutions,” the former Legal advisor to Operation Vanguard noted.
Ex-Captain Seid stressed that the establishment of the taskforce was needless.

“We already have laws governing these operations. If they prove to be inadequate, you don’t need a knee jerk reaction to resolve that. In any case, are we looking at long term solutions or short-term solutions. We should also think about the implications of such operations on the tax payer. So, if all that was contemplated was to get into the field and uproot illegal mining, that obviously wasn’t going to solve the problem,” the former military officer noted.

It would be recalled that Operation Vanguard, a Joint Military and Police Taskforce (JTF) of 400 personnel, comprising 200 military and 200 police personnel, was formed in July, 2017 to deal with illegal mining activities.

This became necessary because the ‘galamsey’ menace was degrading the forests and polluting the rivers and water bodies in the country.

The taskforce was deployed to the most affected areas in the Eastern, Western and Ashanti regions.