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The former Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng has refuted allegations that he deliberately leaked his galamsey report to cause public disaffection for the government.
The heart surgeon said he only released the report to CID officials who interrogated him following his interview with GTV.
According to him, they are the only group he released the report to aside from the Presidency.
“I didn’t write the report for Ghanaians to talk about it. It has been two years since the report was authored.
“I didn’t leak it. After I was granted an interview with GTV, some CID officials visited me to investigate some comments I made in the interview concerning some excavators. I then handed over the report to them.
“I am not saying the CID officials leaked the report but I gave them the report to aid their investigations and that was the end,” he said in an interview with Accra-based UTV on Friday, May 5.
Prof Frimpong-Boateng, the former Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) cited persons in government who he accuses of frustrating his effort to fight what is locally called ‘galamsey’ when he was Environment Minister.
“Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the President’s commitment to protecting the environment.
“I can state without any equivocation that many party officials from the national to the unit committee level had their friends, PAs, agents, relatives, financiers, or relatives engaged in illegal mining. Most of them engaged Chinese working for them.
“I am not referring to party people who had their legitimate concession and were mining sustainably as they were instructed to do.
“There are appointees in the Jubilee House that are doing or supporting illegal mining or interfering with the fight against the menace,” excerpts of the document said.
While some of the persons he mentioned in the report have denied any wrongdoing, many in the public believe the galamsey fight is a lost cause.
Source : myjoyonline