An alarming video has surfaced of a young boy, who is barely ten years old, operating an excavator at a galamsey site.
According to reports, the young boy in the video was undergoing training in excavator operations at an illegal mining site.
In the viral video, the young boy was spotted alone in an excavator, displaying his skills as he manipulates the earth-moving equipment without the help of any elderly person.
The video has left many Ghanaians in shock, who reacted to the video saying, “Under the Children’s Act, 1998 (Act 560), this constitutes exploitative labour, and those who engaged with the child and his parents should be arrested. It is a form of suicidal indoctrination into criminality and early criminal exposure. There is no justification for this”.
“The training aspect of the young champ is very good, but the purpose of the excavation is wrongful if only it is wrongful Galamsay. Is the appropriate small-scale mining termed Galamsay? Even if you acquire the necessary documentation and genuinely follow protocols and ethics?”, a netizen added.
One netizen wrote, “Teach them young and they will know more when they grow. I would rather put my son in this situation than let him go to school .. and later come do protocol before he works for the government as a slave”.
Additionally, a netizen added, “If not for this galamsey crisis in the country, like to me, this is a very good example at the boys’ exposure in sure”.
“Ghana is finished, that is child abuse, and he must face the law”, one more netizen wrote.
Also, an illegal miner has boldly declared that no amount of destruction caused by the anti-galamsey task force to destroy their machine will deter them from illegal mining.
The illegal miner made this declaration while his colleague was assembling new equipment to continue their illegal mining operation despite an earlier raid by anti-galamsey forces.
Speaking in a viral video, the illegal miner stated, “The soldiers have come to our sites and they have destroyed our machines, so we have gone for a new one. If you burn it ten times, we will buy new machines ten times.
Do you know the price? It is 9000, and within five days, we can buy a new one. Don’t worry yourself, the galamsey cannot be stopped. Tell Mahama to give us machines so that we can destroy the land well. We are destroying the land. Look, that is someone’s home.
The leaders, what have they done for us? This is not an excavator that we will say we don’t have the money to buy. Within five days, you will get the money to buy a new one”.
Meanwhile, Joseph Nelson, the Western Regional Minister, has commended the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Police Command for arresting 12 persons for the destruction of railway lines along the Akyim-Bonsawere stretch.
The Takoradi-Nsuta Railway lines once facilitated the haulage of tonnes of manganese in the Western Region.
The destruction, spanning several meters, has caused widespread public outrage, with many netizens calling for the immediate arrest and prosecution of the perpetrators.
The damage follows years of deterioration and abandonment of the railway infrastructure.
With the absence of active railway operations, galamseyers seize the opportunity to encroach on the area in search of gold.
Speaking to the media, Joseph Nelson demanded the prosecution of the 12 arrested individuals and also sustained monitoring of the railway.
“This is a threat not only to national assets but also to our very existence since the environment is constantly being polluted, a threat to water supply, forest reserves, water bodies, among others,” he said.
The Regional Minister urged the police to step up surveillance saying, “From all indications, this mining did not happen in a day; it’s been here for weeks or months.”
Watch the video below:
An alarming video has surfaced of a young boy, who is barely ten(10) years old undergoing training in excavator operations at an illegal mining site. pic.twitter.com/l5eNphY7Kf
— SIKAOFFICIAL🦍 (@SIKAOFFICIAL1) October 7, 2025