At the upheave of the illegal and small scale mining in Ghana which brought many negative impacts on the lives of some people, water bodies, forests, farms and child labour and exploitation, some concerned citizens and international bodies kicked against the exploitative mining sector which forced the government of Ghana to heed to the call and set up an inter-ministerial taskforce to stop the illegal and small scale mining.
This, also, denied millions of cedis of those who were engaged in mining as a means of livelihood and economic power. But to the surprise of many Ghanaian and the international community, the top government officials including ministers who pretend to be protecting the poor were rather engaged in the illegal and small scale mining while selling the excavators seized from the poor citizens and some Chinese miners at absurdly cheap price as low as GHC50,000 (US$9,500) to their New Patriotic Party loyalist and friends, according to a leaked tape shared by one of the top-officials of the ruling party.
“I have video recordings of all the people. I did the illegal mining (Galamsey; as called in the local parlance) with. John Boadu (National General Secretary of NPP), Prof Frimpong Boateng (Minister of Environment, Science and Technology and also the chairman of the inter-ministerial taskforce to end illegal), Chairman Wontumi (Ashanti Regional Chairman of NPP), Kojo Oppong Nkrumah (Minister of Information) etc.
“I won’t go down alone. Even if I have to release the video of my meeting with the President, I will do that. We agreed to operate Galamsey to finance the party so why are they trying to sacrifice me? Is it because I am not Akyem? We will all go down”, said Horace Ekow Ewusi, NPP Vice Chairman for Central Region who was first arrested by the Ghana Police Service in connection to the alleged missing 500 seized excavators.
This, having brought serious indictment to the ruling government has forced the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo to authorize the Attorney General and the Inspector General of Ghana Police Service to arrest names of the ministers and top government officials mentioned in the leaked tape through a press release signed by Director of Communication at the Presidency, Eugene Arhin.
Source: Adnan Adams Mohammed
