Galamsey: NPP Govt. must Account for 900 Missing Excavators, not 500 – Okudzeto Ablakwa

Member of Parliament (MP) for the North Tongu constituency in the Volta Region, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, has said the Akufo-Addo led government need to rather account for 900 siezed excavators as indicated in the 2020 budget.

According to the MP, the 500 reported missing excavators is far from “the bigger picture” which has been ignored by the media. He noted that, sections of the 2020 budget shows the actual number of excavators being confiscated by the government, that need to be accounted for.

“We may be missing the bigger picture if we keep focusing attention on only the supposed 500 missing excavators,” he stated. 

According to him, “Paragraph 801 of the 2020 budget gives us an idea of what the Akufo-Addo administration should be accounting for in his rather abysmal galamsey fight – 900 excavators”. 

Okudzeto Ablakwa also hinted at other key issues that need to be addressed by the government in regards to its “abysmal fight against galamsey”

The MP pushed for the accountability of  2779 weapons and ammunitions, as well as 4,045 other mining equipment purported to be seized by the government.

He also asked that the identities of 139 Chinese illegal miners arrested and deported be disclosed, adding that “more importantly, the justification for not prosecuting [the Chinese illegal miners] despite the earlier Aisha Huang backlash by the general Ghanaian populace”

The MP asserted via his social media channels that, these concerns needs to be immediately addressed by the government “especially at this time when they desperately need to redeem their image before a nation feeling terribly betrayed”

Source: Jonas Danquah || ghananewsonline.com.gh