Former Minister of Environment Science, Technology and Innovation Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng must be prepared to answer some legitimate questions when it comes to illegal small scale mining (Galamsey), a Deputy Communications Officer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ernest Owusu-Bempah has said
This comes after the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) report written to the Chief of Staff in March, 2021 by Prof Frimpong-Boateng implicated a wide number of government officials, most of whom have denied the allegations in the report.
“I for one, I don’t have any difficulty with people demanding investigations on galamsey related activities. However, Prof Frimpong-Boateng must be prepared to answer some legitimate questions.
“Is Frimpong Boateng himself clean on the matter of galamsey? Is it true that he is under investigations over his own involvement in the galamsey trade? What exactly triggered his recent contrived tales?
“Why did it take him almost four years in political hibernation to spill the beans on official complicity on the obvious illegality? My questions are unending and I demand unscripted response from Frimpong-Boateng,” Mr Owusu-Bempah said in a statement.
Below is his full statement…
It is perverse how Frimpong Boateng’s tales triggered Sammy Gyamfi’s political insanity
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Over the past few days, we’ve heard endless platitudes about Prof Frimpong-Boateng’s ‘galamsey’ tales and how the hidden agenda of some government officials actually encourages the menace.
Quite frankly, the quotable quotes from a document authored by the former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, and Chairperson of the erstwhile Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining(IMCIM), Prof Frimpong-Boateng making the rounds is rather unfortunate.
Indeed, Prof Frimpong-Boateng’s claim that very highly placed people in government are involved in galamsey related activities ought to be confronted head-on.
Again, his claim that the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah can’t call him out on his numerous misrepresentations on the basis that, he’s older than Oppong Nkrumah ought to be treated with absolute contempt.
It is true that what an old man sees when sitting down will elude a young man standing at his full height. So also is the fact that what a baby sees when crawling would totally elude an old man when perching.
I for one, I don’t have any difficulty with people demanding investigations on galamsey related activities. However, Prof Frimpong-Boateng must be prepared to answer some legitimate questions.
Is Frimpong Boateng himself clean on the matter of galamsey? Is it true that he is under investigations over his own involvement in the galamsey trade? What exactly triggered his recent contrived tales?
Why did it take him almost four years in political hibernation to spill the beans on official complicity on the obvious illegality?
My questions are unending and I demand unscripted response from Frimpong-Boateng.
We all know that there is a massive destruction of our environment, the worse of its kind in our country’s forest history by the galamsey menace. We also know for a fact that Prof Frimpong-Boateng was the Minister in charge of the environment for 4 years. The critical question is, what exactly did he do about the fight against galamsey?
The man posed as the leader who would finally tackle the galamsey menace. And for 4 years, he was on the job and unable to find solutions?
I have actually cited a letter that Frimpong-Boateng authored and addressed to the then Chief Executive Officer of the Minerals Commission. The content of that letter clearly shows that Prof Frimpong-Boateng himself cannot be exempted from culpability on the matter of galamsey and its related activities.
Now he is trying to stay relevant by making unguarded claims? Frimpong-Boateng waited until his own interest in the galamsey trade appeared endangered, before he chose to go to town?
In all honesty, Frimpong Boateng’s open warfare and his Galamsay tales is a symptom of failure at everything except the art of avoiding responsibility and deflecting blame. And beyond his claims, I am yet to see one piece of evidence of reasonable value that implicates the names mentioned in his so-called report. If this is not a contrived tales, then I don’t know what it is.
As for Sammy Gyamfi, his sense of self importance outsized his myopia.
He wadded into this matter and made off handed remarks about people mentioned in the so-called Frimpong-Boateng report and claim he is leading the charge about the galamsey fight, not knowing to this opportunistic partisan falcon, it was the Mahama administration that shamelessly launched the Youth in Small Scale Mining programme in the Eastern Region, which apparently opened the floodgate for galamsey.
Indeed, this is a no brainer situation, but then, NDC leaders like Sammy Gyamfi appears to have no brains or conscience. Their conduct is like the pot calling the kettle black because their track record in the galamsey menace is horrible.
For those that may have missed this; the erstwhile Mahama government issued an infinite resident permit to Aisha Huang.
Precisely on 28th March 2015, Aisha Huang was given an indefinite resident permit to live here in perpetuity and to engage in galamsey activities. This happened under the Mahama administration. Meanwhile, she was unsuccessful in getting the permit during the President Kufour era.
So you see, any dastardly attempt by the NDC to rationalize the political economy of galamsay must be roundedly condemned. It is beyond dispute that under John Mahama-led government, the national record of the deleterious impact of galamsay left a lot to be desired. It was simply unprecedented.
All that the Akufo-Addo administration has been doing is simply managing a very bad situation as well as it can by the deft and relatively constructive application of the statutory laws of the land.
The NDC and its henchmen like Sammy Gyamfi always makes it feels as though Ghana politics has nowhere to go. It is as though there’s nothing left to do except manufacture perspective wars to distract those who might otherwise see rot and disintegration and thereby pretend that the system is never on the side of reason, and against those who see unfairness and tend towards the good Ghana agenda.
Truth is, there’s no other path to power for the NDC because to accurately identify and then work to rectify the problems caused by their choices is to admit that their ideology and political decisions have been wring for all this years.
With the likes of Sammy Gyamfi in the helm of NDC’s affairs, the party is trapped by the future they created. They are stuck because of their own history. So all they have left is fantasy, denial and unreality.
Sammy Gyamfi doesn’t seem to appreciate the truth of the old adage that; “No battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy,” and he also seems to have overlooked the principle that people who ignore the lessons of history are bound to repeat it.
Hopefully, they’ll seek truth going forward and get out of their bubble.
Enough said
Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah, Deputy Director of Communications, NPP