NAIMOS Launches Operation WATER SHIELD To Protect Ghana’s Major Rivers From Illegal Mining
The National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) has launched Operation WATER SHIELD, a sustained national enforcement campaign to protect Ghana’s major rivers, watersheds and other critical water resources from the destructive effects of illegal mining.
The operation, announced in a statement on Friday, September 11, 2026, marks a shift from isolated raids to a sustained, intelligence-led campaign to secure priority river systems from their source areas to downstream communities and water-treatment facilities.
According to NAIMOS, Operation WATER SHIELD will focus on some of the country’s most threatened river systems, including the Birim, Ankobra, Tano, Bia, Pra and Offin Rivers, as well as affected sections of the Black and White Volta systems.
Strategic source areas and upper catchments whose degradation affects downstream water quality will also receive priority attention.
The Secretariat said the operation, to be conducted in collaboration with relevant security and state agencies, will protect strategic river source areas, deny illegal miners access to riverbanks and waterways, dismantle mining logistics networks, disrupt the criminal and financial structures sustaining illegal mining, support the restoration of degraded water bodies, and establish sustained monitoring to prevent reoccupation of cleared areas.
It stated that the ultimate objective is to substantially degrade and contain illegal mining within protected watersheds, restrict the movement of heavy equipment into critical river systems, disrupt financing and supply networks, improve water quality and restore effective control over affected river basins.
Enforcement under Operation WATER SHIELD, it said, will be firm, sustained and uncompromising, within the law.
Illegal miners operating on water bodies and riverbanks should expect their operations to be disrupted and their equipment seized, immobilised or otherwise dealt with in accordance with applicable law and established procedures.
Excavators, chanfang machines, water pumps, dredging equipment and other machinery used to destroy water bodies will remain key enforcement targets, the statement added.
The campaign will also extend beyond miners at riverbanks to the networks that enable their activities.
Facilitators, unauthorised fabricators of chanfang machines, and individuals or companies that rent or supply excavators, pumps and other machinery for illegal mining will face increased scrutiny and enforcement action.
NAIMOS said cleared river corridors will be continuously monitored to prevent reoccupation and support environmental recovery, particularly in river basins that supply communities, agriculture and water-treatment systems.
The Secretariat called on traditional authorities, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, equipment owners, communities and the public to support Operation WATER SHIELD and provide credible information on illegal mining activities and those who finance, facilitate or supply equipment for such operations.
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