The former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has named top officials of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) including Ministers in government at the seat of government who are involved in illegal mining popularly called galamsey.
He named the late Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie popularly known as Sir John among the big wigs of the NPP actively involved in galamsey.
In Frimpong-Boateng’s report on the fight against illegal mining in Ghana by the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), he said Sir John deliberately failed to subscribe to GalamStop, an app rolled out to regulatory agencies in the forest industry.
The report stated that « Although it was worrying, I was not surprised that the Forestry Commission did not migrate onto the GalamStop Platform. »
Prof. Boateng indicated that Sir John was giving out timber concessions even in forest reserves for logging.
« He also gave forestry entry permits to mining companies, both large and small-scale, including those of foreign nationals for prospecting activities at a time when the President had put a ban on that activity, » he added.
« Through Charles Owusu, the Director of Operations at the Forestry Commission, Sir John had Chinese gangs doing mining on his behalf »… « The greatest danger to the forests of Ghana was Sir John, » he added.
Some 500 missing excavators from galamseyers in 2020, Boateng said was a fabrication by some individuals in government to get him out of the way.
The excavators seized from illegal miners were said to have gone missing in February 2020 prompting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the excavators.
Calls were made for the missing excavators to be traced and accounted for while persons responsible for the disappearance of the heavy-duty equipment were arrested and prosecuted.
Since then, little or nothing has been heard about the matter.
Pulse
