A Ghanaian court has ordered the deportation of four Chinese Nationals who engage in illegal mining in Ghana. According to the court, a 40-acre land wearmarked for a school was depleted through their illegal activities.
Further investigations by the court also revealed additional criminal violations by these miners apart from the illegal mining. The presiding judge disclosed that the four of them breached immigration rules through the use of Fraudulent means to validate their stay in Ghana.
This development also comes after Ghana recently replaced Chinese Engineers with Ghanaian Engineers.
“The four Chinese citizens who have all violated sections 23(1) and 35(1, d) of the Immigration Act 2000 (Act 573) of Ghana when found working by prospecting for gold on the disputed site at Obuasi are to be deported to their country of origin by this court and are hereby deported,” the judge said.
The Arrest Of The Chinese Citizens
The security officials who effected this arrest told the court and reporters that the illegal miners who were arrested together with their Ghanaian collaborators were mining under the protection of armed guards.
The four, Shi Li Wen, Huang Shen Jun, Li DeHao and Lan Hai Song were initially granted a bail of about $35,000 dollars each with a condition to provide two sureties. According to the court, failure to meet these conditions prompted a seizure of their passports and work permits to prevent them from absconding. They were held in custody until the final judgement ordering their deportation.
Illegal mining is one of the major problems in the West African country. In recent times, the Ghanaian government has taken a very radical approach to deal with the menace.
Meanwhile, the Chinese ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Shi Ting Wang earlier stated that Ghanaians should be blamed for the illegal activities of the Chinese nationals. According to him, Chinese have no idea where Gold is located in Ghana. He insisted that, without the aid of the locals, Chinese cannot engage in such illegalities.
“We don’t know where your gold is. We don’t issue visas too for the Chinese people coming to Ghana. Ghanaians issue the visas…Ghanaians aid the Chinese to where they can find your gold.” the ambassador said, adding that; “why are Chinese not doing illegal mining in South Africa where there is also a lot of gold…because they cannot do that there and the locals don’t support such illegalities.”