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The East Akim Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Simon Peter Asirifi, said two operations conducted by national security operatives had led to reduction in illegal gold mining in the municipality. He said illegal gold mining (galamsey) led to increase in crime rate, unexplained deaths of young men in the bush, teenage pregnancy, high divorce rate and school dropouts in the municipality. Addressing the second ordinary meeting of the assembly at Kyebi on Thursday, Mr Asirifi said the war against illegal mining in the municipality would continue until the municipality is rid of all illegal operators. Mr Asirifi said assemblies had been directed to complete all on-going projects before initiating new ones and that the assembly would find it difficult to approve projects that some of the assembly members were requesting. He however said where a project was very important he had held talks with the Members of Parliament in the area to use some of their resources to fund it. Mr Asirifi mentioned some of the on-going projects in the municipality as renovation of the Children's Ward of the Tafo Government Hospital, construction of two six unit classroom blocks at Adadientem and Adonkwanta, construction of a court building at Kyebi and the construction of J. B. Danquah Memorial Library at Kyebi. He said last year the assembly collected 10.8 per cent more than the targeted internally generated revenue but this year, as at September, the assembly had been able to achieve only 67 per cent of the targeted revenue.