The National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the Jubilee House as a crime scene.
According to Sammy Gyamfi, the seat of government, is a place for illegalities in the country.
Mr Gyamfi said Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng’s galamsey report is a testament to his claim.
Speaking on Metro TV on Thursday, April 27, he lambasted President Akufo-Addo for not acting on the report of Professor Frimpong-Boateng, written in 2021.
“Professor Frimpong-Boateng is not an ordinary person talking but this was the man who was in charge of the fight and he has not just written a report and kept under his bed but submitted it to the Presidency and indicated that he is ready to substantiate those allegations.
“In fact, in some of the instances, he has even given us evidences including videos, pictures and messages and so we must get to the bottom of these issues.
“Then he talks about the former NPP MP for Manso Nkwanta who under the guise of community mining also acquired a lot of concessions. So you see, the Jubilee House today is a crime scene,” he said.
Prof Frimpong-Boateng, the former Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) has submitted names of people in government who he accuses of frustrating his effort to fight what is locally called ‘galamsey’ when he was Environment Minister.
In the said document, the renowned surgeon mentioned some individuals he claims frustrated his effort and the committee he chaired from addressing the canker.
“Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the President’s commitment to protecting 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. Most of them engaged Chinese working for them.
“I am not referring to party people who had their legitimate concession and were mining sustainably as they were instructed to do.
“There are appointees in the Jubilee House that are doing or supporting illegal mining or interfering with the fight against the menace,” excerpts of the document said.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng also accused a former NPP MP in the Ashanti Region of selling illegally acquired concessions at GH¢200,000 each.
According to him, this “infuriated the party in the constituency so during the 2020 primaries to select a candidate the electorate voted against NPP MP, the then sitting MP, who was more resourced than other candidates.
However, some of the persons mentioned in the report have denied same.
For instance, President Akufo-Addo’s cousin, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has rejected the allegations.
According to the NPP stalwart, he only called the renowned medical doctor to seek information on his client – a company that had the permits to mine in the country.
“Heritage had a mining exploration permit issued in July 2019, a forest entry permit issued in November 2018, and also an EPA permit yet the soldiers went and seized the equipment of Heritage and so I called the soldiers and was told that it was the Minister who had sanctioned them and so I asked the Minister what the issue was with the equipment seizures and the Minister said they were prospecting and not exploring and that was the conversation that we had.
“My intervention was to understand why a legitimate company with all the requisite permits was stopped from doing their work and that is what lawyers do,” he said in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM on Thursday, April 20.
He added that Prof Frimpong-Boateng deliberately twisted his mediation to cause public disaffection for him.
“The Minister deliberately twisted the inquiry by a lawyer of a client’s issue to be an interference and the thing is, it was even a phone call that lasted not more than four minutes, and he ended by saying Heritage shouldn’t have been issued with the license,” Mr Otchere-Darko explained.
