Wontumi Jailed 20 Years over Samreboi Galamsey
The Accra High Court sentenced the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, to 20 years in prison in a trial.
This sentence is in respect of a trial in which he and his company, Akonta Mining Limited, were found guilty on six counts relating to the assignment of mineral rights without ministerial approval and facilitating an unlicensed mining operation.
The court found that Chairman Wontumi and Akonta Mining permitted Henry Okoom and Michael Gyedu Ayisi to undertake mining activities on the company’s concession without securing the prior approval of the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, and that they thereby facilitated illegal mining on the land.
In addition to the jail term, Chairman Wontuml will pay GHc 120,000, in default of which he will serve three years in prison.
His company was also fined on two counts.
Relying largely on circumstantial evidence, the court was of the view that the absence of ministerial approval was never contested by the defence, describing the admission as implicit since no application for approval had been made by the company.
Chairman Wontumi had told the court he had granted Henry Okoom permission only to reclaim land by planting coconut, and not to mine.
He said he did not know Okoom was a small-scale miner, maintaining Okoom had rather presented himself as a mine support service provider.
The court, however, held that this explanation could not stand.
It added that Chairman Wontumi led no evidence to verify Okoom’s claimed reclamation experience, and that Okoom, in unchallenged testimony, told the court he mined on unmined portions of the concession to recover costs after Chairman Wontumi failed to give him money for the reclamation work.
Relying on the principles on circumstantial evidence set out in Duah v The Republic [1987-88] 1 GLR 343, the court found no reasonable explanation existed to rival the conclusion that Wontumi had knowingly permitted Okoom to mine.
It dismissed as an afterthought Wontumi’s later explanation that he expected Okoom to recover his costs from the eventual sale of matured coconuts.
Source: Graphic
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