Key Gov’t And NPP Officials Behind Galamsey; Report By Former Minister Says

A report by the Former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng asserts illegal mining in the country had key members of government and the New Patriotic Party behind it.

According to the report, these officials blatantly disregarded the President’s commitment to fighting the menace and engaged in the act.

“Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the President’s commitment to protect the environment.

“I can state without any equivocation that many party officials from the National to the unit committee level had their friends, PAs, agents, relatives, financiers or relatives engaged in illegal mining… There are appointees in the Jubilee House that are doing or supporting illegal mining.”

According to him, these officials employed the services of Chinese to work on their behalf.

He said those at the Jubilee House used their roles to interfere in the fight against the illegality.

Prof Frimpong Boateng was in 2020 accused of being behind some 500 missing excavators- which were seized during his fight against illegal mining- while he was the Chairman of the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM).

In a recent interview, the former Minister said the news about the missing excavators was fabricated by members of the NPP who felt threatened by his clamp down on the illegality.

“But let me tell you, I did not take one excavator for anything, and they know the truth. Now things are coming up; we know those who are behind it and the party people who are there,” he said.

“There was an orchestrating scheme even within the party and government to get me out… why is it that when I left, now everybody is in the forest? At that time (when I was a minister), you dare not enter the forest,” he added.