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The Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul has hinted that the soldiers deployed to mining areas might have the orders to shoot illegal miners if need be.

He made this conjecture while delivering a speech at the Ministry of Information's ''Meet the Press'' series on Tuesday, May 11.

The Minister noted that there have been no arrest of the illegal miners since the Military began their operation as instructed by the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, President Nana Akufo-Addo, to remove all persons and machines in the mining communities.

Dominic Nitiwul stated that no arrest has been made so far because, "most illegal miners took to their heels. The moment they see the Military, they took to their heels but the Military decided that, at this face, they will not be shooting anybody."

He expounded, "So, they run off and so they couldn't get people to arrest . . . even the safety of the troops themselves, they decided that, if somebody is running into the forest, into the bush, you don't know what he is carrying, you don't know what he is doing; the only thing you could have done is to have shot him but they decided that this is not the time to do that."

The Minister superficially added that, although the Military have resisted themselves from firing gunshots, "maybe in future, it may happen; I don't know but, for now, this is not the time to do that and so we couldn't make any arrest for now".