Attorney General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has described the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) response to the legal advice rendered by his office on Professor Frimpong Boateng’s report on the fight against illegal mining as antithetical to national development and progress.
According to him, the NDC’s attempt to discredit the legal advice offered to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service simply on account of a failure of the content of the advice to feed a particular narrative desired by a political party is extremely dangerous.
The NDC is demanding the immediate resignation of the Attorney General over his failure to prosecute government officials accused of engaging in illegal mining.
According to the party, “Mr Dame does not befit the stature of the high office of Attorney-General and Minister of Justice for this country because he simply does not have the interest of the nation at heart.”
“The NDC hereby demands the immediate resignation of the Attorney-General for his dubious attempt to cover up serious crimes that have been perpetrated against the state by corrupt government and NPP officials who are destroying our water bodies and forests through illegal mining,” said National Communications Officer, Sammy Gyamfi.
This call follows the Attorney General’s advice that former Environment Minister, Prof Frimpong Boateng’s allegations in his report on illegal mining activities in the country are empty and do not have evidence to aid the prosecution of the persons named in it.
The Attorney General therefore asked the police to discharge the persons mentioned in the report except those still under investigation.
Responding to the NDC’s allegation of cover-up, Godfred Dame said “State Attorneys are under a constitutional duty to render advice on dockets faithfully and impartially, and make a decision to prosecute or not, devoid of attacks by political actors.”
He noted that the issue at hand was not a probe into general galamsey issues in the country, but one that bordered on persons named in the Prof. Frimpong-Boateng report.
“The conclusions by the learned Chief State Attorney are thus only in relation to those specific allegations. Prosecution for Galamsey offences, including those committed in all forest reserves and water bodies, continues throughout the country,” he said.
He added that while the NDC had been quick to accuse him of a cover-up, they had failed to produce any evidence to back the allegations made by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng.
“The entire NDC’s press conference was, in point of fact, vitiated by a fraudulent attempt at explaining their orchestrated lies and abuses against me, as they are wont to do,” he said.
“At the end of the press conference by the NDC, not a shred of evidence had been produced by the NDC against any of the persons named above. The wild allegation that I am engaged in an exercise to cover up crimes allegedly committed by them is therefore perplexing, dubious and mischievous to say the least.
“I deem that press conference by the NDC as only the latest in the series of attacks on me for decisions taken in the regular course of my functions as Attorney-General which that political party finds to be inimical to its interests,” he added.
He urged the general public to utterly disregard the “discredited assertions of the NDC as unmeritorious and lacking any form of credibility.”
“It is the height of injustice to prosecute people for crimes when there is no evidence. It is for this reason that the Office of Attorney-General did not prosecute either Prof Frimpong-Boateng or his son, Jojo Frimpong-Boateng in the face of allegations by the Adansiman Progressive Association that they were seriously engaged in Galamsey,” he stated.
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