Prof Frimpong Boateng Angry, Names All Top Government Officials Taking Part in ‘Galamsey’ -Check Out Details

Prof Frimpong Boateng Angry, Names All Top Government Officials Taking Part in ‘Galamsey’ -Check Out Details

Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, a former minister of environment, science, technology, and innovation, has charged some top government figures with engaging in unlawful mining, also known as “galamsey.”

He asserts that the rot extends as far as Jubilee House, the seat of administration. In spite of the fact that MyJoyOnline.com has seized a 36-page paper prepared by Professor Boateng and addressed to the President, the Chief of Staff, and the police, President Akufo-Addo had already ordered the police to look into claims of unlawful mining. In the aforementioned text, Professor Boateng named a few people who, in his opinion, thwarted his and the committee he oversaw from tackling 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 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 the NPP MP, the then sitting MP, who was more resourced than other candidates.

Although there were allegations that he ‘camped’ delegates and attempted to bribe them, he lost to a lesser-known individual who did not have any financial muscle.

Professor Frimpong Boateng, earlier in March, insisted that the rot goes as high as the government seat, Jubilee House. In an interview with state broadcaster GBC, the former Minister said these individuals supervised his ousting from the Ministry to continue perpetuating the canker.

Professor Boateng stressed that the allegations of some 500 missing excavators from illegal miners in 2020 were fabrications of persons in the government to get him out of the way.

Following the revelation, there were calls from a cross-section of Ghanaians for state security agencies to look into it. On the back of this, the President asked the Ghana Police Service to probe the matter.

This, the former Minister has written to the Presidency, naming the specific individuals he referred to in his claim.

Illegal mining has been a major problem in Ghana for several years. The practice involves the extraction of gold and other minerals from the ground without proper licensing or regulatory oversight.

It has been associated with environmental degradation, pollution of water bodies, and loss of livelihoods for communities that depend on mining for their survival. The Ghanaian government has been trying to tackle the problem for many years but with limited success.

Professor Frimpong Boateng was appointed as the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation by President Akufo-Addo in 2017. He was tasked with leading the government’s efforts to address the problem of illegal mining in the country.

During his time as Minister, he oversaw the implementation of several policies aimed at curbing illegal mining. These included the deployment of a task force to clamp down on illegal mining activities, the seizure of equipment used by illegal miners, and the introduction of a ban on small-scale mining.