National Mine Surveillance Centre — Ghana's AI-and-Drone Crackdown on Illegal 'Galamsey' Mining

Illegal small-scale mining, known locally as 'galamsey', has driven severe river and land degradation across Ghana's Western and Ashanti Regions, historically outrunning the Minerals Commission's capacity for manual, complaint-driven site inspections.

The Commission built a National Mine Surveillance Centre, launched in 2023, feeding imagery from patrolling drones into a central control room where AI models help flag unauthorised sites, assess environmental damage and check compliance with approved mining plans. Run with the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) and the Ghana Police Service's Allied Police Unit, the programme began as a pilot in the Western Region and had expanded into the Ashanti Region by February 2026.

Ghana's ICT-sector press reported AI-assisted detection accuracy rising from 58% (2022) to 92% (2025), average response time falling from five days to under twelve hours, a drone fleet that has grown past 120 units, and an estimated ₵400 million in gold-smuggling losses prevented. In February 2026 the Commission's Deputy CEO, Emmanuel Kwamena Ayeme, publicly confirmed the real-time monitoring capability and regional expansion, while stating that 'technology must be supported with clear, forward-looking policy' and calling for stronger legal frameworks and institutional capacity.

The accuracy, response-time and loss-prevention figures trace to sector-commentary reporting rather than an identifiable Minerals Commission audit, so they should be read as indicative rather than independently verified. The Commission's own deputy chief executive frames the legal and institutional framework around the technology as still a work in progress.