Executives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Abuakwa South constituency in the Eastern Region, have denied claims in the controversial report of the ersthwhile Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) that galamsey was happening right inside a garden in the house of President Nana Akufo-Addo at Kyebi.
A statement issued Tuesday and signed by the constituency communications officer of the party, Felix Nyarko Acheampong, and Julius Okyere, Abuakwa South Constituency Secretary, said contrary to claims in the report authored by Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, and Chairman of the IMCIM, no anonymous Youth Organiser of the NPP at Kyebi had engaged in illegal mining in an area close to the president’s house.
“In the first place, to state that ‘the Youth Organizer of the NPP in Kyebi’ is involved in any kind of illegality, is only vague, as such allegation falls short of indicating what level of the party structure the said Youth Organizer occupied at the time of the supposed incident. Was he/she a Polling Station, Constituency, Regional or National Youth Organizer? There is nothing like a local Youth Organizer anywhere in the NPP Constitution.
“Indeed, if his reference to Kyebi is meant to indicate that the supposed wrongdoing is attributable to a certain Constituency Youth Organizer, then the Constituency executives wish to emphatically state, that the then Constituency Youth Organizer has never been associated whatsoever, with galamsey operation; hence, rendering this allegation short of substance.
“Secondly, the very location of the President’s Kyebi residence in itself, makes it impossible for any illegal mining operation to take place even close to it. Except those who do not know the house, everyone would attest to the fact that the President’s house is not obscured, as it is closely surrounded by many other houses. For that matter, to suggest that an illegal mining operation has taken place near the walled house, to the extend that it affected parts of a supposed garden in the house, only lives much to be desired about what method at all was
used for such operation.
“To add to the above, the President does not even have a garden, so to speak, in his Kyebi residence; therefore, to state that a section of his garden was affected, is nothing but palpable falsehood. The Learned Professor would have, perhaps, been forgiven if he had only maintained that such report got to him through a phone call placed to him by Mr. Eric Antwi of the office of the President; but to have continued to say that he personally followed up to see with his very eyes, the supposed incident, simply casts a huge slur on the integrity of both the Former Minister and his work as Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee. We entreat well meaning media houses to come to the President’s residence in Kyebi to check and double check the facts on the ground, and compare same with the allegations contained in that section of Professor Frimpong-Boateng’s report.”
Below is the Abuakwa South NPP statement:
