Civil society activist, Dr Steve Manteaw, has criticised the government's decision to deport foreigners caught engaging in illegal small-scale mining instead of prosecuting and jailing them.
His call falls on the back of the statement by the Minister of the Interior, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, that foreigners caught engaging in illicit mining would be deported to their countries. "For these two crimes, when we arrest any foreigner, we are not interested in prosecuting him.
Our first option is to take them back to their country.
And this is something that we are very serious about," Muntaka stated on April 4, 2025, during an engagement with the Ashanti Regional Police Command in Kumasi.
