Ghana’s war on illegal mining has failed – we set out to find out why

📅 Published: August 17, 2025

📰 Source: theconversation

Curated by AllZimNews.com

Initially for six months, the ban lasted for 20 months until December 2018, when it was lifted for newly registered miners.

But illegal mining continued unabated.

A statement made in Ghana’s parliament by the country’s lands minister outlined the scale and gold production from small-scale mining increased during the period of its ban.

As political scientists, we investigated why the government-declared “war” on illegal small-scale gold mining and associated environmental degradation failed so spectacularly.

We conducted our investigations through field visits to communities in mining areas in the western and central regions of Ghana.

We interviewed small-scale miners, community residents and people affected by illegal mining.

We followed this up with a review of official reports, published scientific research and media reports.

We concluded from findings that the involvement of government officials and business elites in illegal mining practices was behind the failure of the interventions.

We describe this as “democracy capture”.

We argue that, despite Ghana’s much-vaunted electoral democracy, the country’s democratic processes and institutions have been captured by political and economic elites for their own personal enrichment.

Scandals By mid-2023 a series of corruption scandals had emerged around Ghana’s attempt to curb illegal mining.

These included the release of an undercover investigation by journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas.