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Member of Parliament for the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Constituency, George Mireku Duker, is calling for the establishment of river guards to secure the country’s river bodies.

According to him, mining in rivers will not end if we don’t have people from the towns policing them from being polluted.

Hon. Mireku Duker made the call on Adom TV’s morning show, Badwam Wednesday while discussing government’s plans to lift the ban on galamsey.

Government was forced to place a ban on small-scale mining known in local parlance as galamsey due to the destruction it was having on the environment and water bodies.

This follows major concerns raised against the menace by various Civil Society groups and the media.

When all other measures failed, the military was deployed to fight the menace that was fast destroying the country’s water bodies and land space.

Dubbed: Operation Vanguard, the Armed Forces are helping restore sanity to the mining sector.

The efforts have yielded some positive results including a moratorium on the issuance of new licenses for small-scale mining.

Applauding government for the initiative, Hon. Mireku Duker maintained that, the introduction of the river guards is the way to go.

He indicated that, aside the river guards, a security post should be placed 500 meters from the river banks to deter anyone from polluting the river.

The Tarkwa-Nsuaem lamented the level of destruction Ghana’s water bodies and land resources were subjected to as a result of illegal mining.

As an MP from a mining community, Mireku Duker believes the initiative if taken onboard will create employment to teeming youth in the mining communities.

Hon. Mireku Duker is confident the river guards will help the water bodies to go back to their natural ecology.