The National Democratic Congress has urged Ghanaians to reject a recent legal opinion offered by the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Dame, on the recent report on the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee against Illegal Mining (IMCIM).
At a press conference addressed by the National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi, the NDC alleged that the Attorney-General’s advice referring to portions of the report as lacking evidence, is nothing but a cover-up and an attempt to whitewash the damning report.
The opposition party, however, described the AG'a legal advice as “a poor attempt to cover-up”.
The NDC further accuses the Attorney-General of hiding behind so-called lack of evidence in a coordinated attempt to shield several government and New Patriotic Party officials from prosecution.
The party alluded to various portions of the 36-page report authored by former Minister for Environment, Science and Innovation and Chairman of the IMCIM, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, which alleged that some officials of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government and the New Patriotic Party were engaged in illegal mining.
Citing what the party refers to as “corroborative evidence”, the NDC faltered the Attorney-General for failing to prosecute the owners of Heritage Imperial Limited, formerly C&J Aleska, a company whose operations were indicted by the report. The party noted that evidence abounds in the public domain, including a documentary by Joy News and the Multimedia group, which exposed widespread destruction of the Kobro section of the Apamprama forest reserve in the Amansie area of the Ashanti region.
The NDC further questioned the Attorney-General’s decision to defer the prosecution of persons it claimed were involved in the stealing and sale of seized excavators. They cited the likes of Horace Ekow Ewusi, who was reported to the Police by Prof. Frimpong Boateng sometime in 2019 as being responsible for the missing excavators.
The NDC alleged that there is “smoking gun evidence” as supported by both the report and records with the Ghana Police Service, which indicts the likes of Ekow Ewusi, one John Ofori Atta, a former Central Regional Security Coordinator and Seth Mantey, a journalist previously with Accra-based Peace FM, as a syndicate behind the sale of at least twenty-seven (27) excavators seized from illegal miners.
The party has therefore called for the head of the Attorney-General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, demanding his immediate resignation for glossing over these evidence, and for attempting to do what they term as a cover-up.