The River Guards have arrested an illegal small-scale miner commonly known as a galamseyer at the Dawurapong, with seven others bolting.
The information gathered reveals that the Bogoso River Guards arrested the galamseyer in the Prestea-Huni-Valley Municipality of the Western Region.
Allan Acheampong, the leader of the Bogoso River Guard, revealed that they found eight galamseyers operating at the tributaries of River Mansi, with seven escaping as they managed to arrest one.
It will be recalled that the Mahama government deployed some 456 Blue River Guards, specifically trained by the Ghana Navy.
The Guards are to protect and monitor water bodies in mining areas affected by illegal mining activities.
According to the Land Minister, Emmanuel Armarh Kofi Buah, the guards are to serve as the ears and eyes of the Security Forces.
Meanwhile, Rev John Ntim Fordjour, a member of Parliament for Assin South in parliament accused the River Guards of abandoning their jobs and now turning themselves into TikTok content creators.
According to him, the government, instead of deploying the Police and Military, are sending River guards who are now creating content on TikTok.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on July 30, 2025, Ntim Fordjour stated, “… Today, galamsey has evolved from being an environmental threat into a criminal enterprise with apparatchiks of the ruling government NDC scrambling for sites,” he said.
“Mr Speaker, galamsey, which our brothers on the other side went around various rivers and fetched water in bottles.
Today, they are not able to go and fetch bottles because of the turbidity of those rivers; they may have to use a shovel to fetch the water and put in the caps,” he asserted.
He added, “And yet, when the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Armed Forces were asking for adequate budgetary allocation to be able to go and fight head-on, they chose to starve the Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service, and to appoint river guards.
River guards with no weapons, always doing all kinds of content on TikTok. That is the result of this government, and that is an indication of their lack of commitment to addressing this matter,” he said.