A Circuit Court in Takoradi presided over by Madam Abigail Animah Asare, has slapped three illegal small-scale miners with a 15-year jail term each.
The convicts are also to pay a fine of 240,000 Ghana cedis each.
According to the Prosecutor of the case, Sergeant Robert Amonoo Yawson, the three, Joseph Donkoh, 40, Joseph Paul, 27, and Charles Ewuse, 27, were arrested on 16th February this year carrying out illegal small-scale mining in the Cape-3-Point Forest Reserve of the Western Region.
They were charged with conspiracy to commit crime and undertaking small-scale mining operations without license contrary to Section 23(1) of the Criminal Offenses Act, and Undertaking Small Scale Mining without license contrary to Section 99(2) of the Amended Minerals and Mining Act of 2019, ACT 995.
If they default in paying the fine, they will each serve two additional weeks in jail. According to the Judge, she was lenient with the sentence because she “took into consideration the fact that the accused persons were first offenders and also did not waste the precious time of the court”.
