Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Upper East Denkyira Municipal Assembly, George Anane Coleman, and his team have launched a land reclamation initiative to combat illegal mining (Galamsey ) in the area, spanning from Upper Denkyira East to Upper Denkyira West and Assin North.
Speaking at the launch of the land reclamation project in Upper East Denkyira on Wednesday, August 27, 2025, he revealed that after a joint meeting with fellow MCEs and DCEs, they realised the severity of the mining issue in their areas and drafted a proposal to the Regional Minister to cover all galamsey pits in the communities.
“We sat down and decided on writing a proposal to the Regional Minister that we want to help cover the pits so we first spoke with the miners and they accepted the fact that the work they’re doing is posing risk to the country.
“The Regional Minister together with NADMO reviewed the proposal, endorsed the it and supplied us with the necessary machines like bulldozers to start the reclamation process,” he noted.
Mr. Anane Coleman further added that they have had productive discussions with miners in the area, who have pledged to work together to cover the pits, effective today, to mitigate potential risks.
“Our colleagues from our neighbouring constituencies, including the miners have come together to begin the exercise.
“From tomorrow, we will doing series of community engagement and in a week’s time, we’ll start going to the field, and willingly, we will make announcements for those who have dug pits to register their names with the Kumasi Assembly so that they help us cover the pits.
“Our priority is that, we don’t want to hear that someone has fallen into a pit and died because of galamsey in our constituencies so our main focus now is to cover all pits closer to houses, farms and children’s playgrounds,” he emphasized.
