A disgraceful report on president Nana Akufo-Addo's fight against illegal mining across the country has painted a grim picture of how people close to the Executive rather facilitated the menace or interfered in the efforts to end it.
The report was authored by Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, a former minister and a former chairman of a special committee formed to ensure that president Akufo-Addo's firm promise to stop the destructive activities of illegal is fulfilled.
Prof Frimpong-Boateng, a former Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), put the report together in his bid to come clean on the work of the committee, the challenges he faced and the way forward. IMCIM was dissolved by the president in 2021.
L-R: Laud Commey, Charles Nii Teiko and Frank Asiedu Bekoe. Source: Facebook/@Charles Nii Teiko Tagoe Source: Facebook.
The full 37-page report has been published by many news portals, including GhanaWeb, and discloses, among other things, that top government and New Patriotic Party (NPP) officials have been blatantly involved in activities that rubbish the president's acclaimed commitment to ending the illegal mining menace.
Laud Commey, Nii Teiko and "Protozoa" cited in report
The president once won the admiration of many well-meaning Ghanaians when he said he would stamp out illegal mining even if it will cost him his presidency. Illegal mining has destroyed lush vegetation and rich forests, polluted important water bodies and destroyed many thriving farms.
On page 13 of the report, Prof Frimpong-Boateng disclosed that three top appointees at the Jubilee House, the seat of Ghana's presidency, have been involved in activities that ran contrary to the national fight to stop the practice that devastates the biodiversity of minerals-rich regions of Ghana, causes deforestation, and pollutes the water, air, and soil through the release of toxic chemicals.
"There are appointees in the Jubilee House that are doing or supporting illegal mining or interfering with the fight against the menace. Examples are Laud Commey, Charles Nii Teiko, and Frank Asiedu Bekoe (Protozoa)," Prof Frimpong-Boateng disclosed.
Charles Nii Teiko is Executive Assistant at the Office of the President at Jubilee House; Frank Aseidu-Bekoe is Director of Political Affairs at the Office of the Chief of Staff, and Laud Commey is a senior staff at the Jubilee House.
NPP bigwigs engaged Chinese to do illegal mining
Meanwhile, in the same report, the former minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation alleged that top government and party officials are in partnerships with Chinese who are mining illegally in Ghana.
He said corrupt state and NPP officials recruit Chinese to engage in illegal mining.
Prof Frimpong-Boateng's report stressed that there is a well-orchestrated plan by corrupt people close to the president to make the fight against illegal mining unsuccessful.
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