Former Secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) says Prof Frimpong Boateng’s associates were also engaging in galamsey.
According to Charles Bissiw, he pointed this out to the former Environment Minister, adding that “Prof Boateng knows the truth.”
He listed a number of them including Francis Owusu Achiaw, Mike Gizo and Kwabena Boakye.
Speaking in an interview on JoyFM’s Top Story on Friday, Mr Bissiw noted that he was disappointed in Prof Boateng over the matter.
“I am also disappointed in Prof Frimpong Boateng to the extent that he has people around him who were doing the same thing [illegal mining],” he said.
He said Prof Boateng has not been consistent and truthful to Ghanaians; explaining that the former Minister was not factual in his reportage on the missing excavators
“At the time he said 500 excavators were missing, I called him and I said Prof that is not factual. You have actually sent about three reports to the National Security Council and the report that you sent reported that we do not have up to even 300 excavators so why 500?
“I called him and he said he knew what he was doing and then three or four years down the line, you come back to say that no excavators got missing.”
Mr. Bisiw also questioned the timing of the report’s release. He further asked whether Prof Boateng would have filed that report if he had been a minister in 2021.
“So I think he is actually reeling because he hadn’t been made a minister,” he added.
His assertion comes on the heels of the former Environment Minister, Prof Frimpong Boateng submitting names of people in government who frustrated his effort in the fight against galamsey.
In the 2021 report to the President which has just been leaked, Prof Boateng accused some senior government officials of active involvement in illegal mining locally called ‘galamsey’.
According to him, the ‘galamsey’ menace goes as high as the government seat, Jubilee House.
Meanwhile, a number of the people cited in the report have come out to clear the air over their involvement.
However, the Minority in Parliament has vowed not to allow former Environment Minister, Prof Frimpong Boateng’s allegations of top officials engaging in illegal mining to be dismissed.
According to the ranking member on Parliament’s Mines and Energy Committee, John Jinapor, the Minority will pursue the issue when Parliament resumes.
This, he stated is because the claims made by the chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) set up by President Akufo-Addo are very serious.
He added that “we cannot allow this level of impunity, this level of gross disregard to our national laws to continue.”
“This is unfortunate and any attempt to sweep it under the carpet will not wash. This is a very serious matter, it tells you why we are failing as a country to build,” he said in an interview on Joy FM’s Top Story on Thursday.
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