The former Environment Minister, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, claimed that a cousin of President Akufo-Addo interfered with his attempts to combat the problem of illegal mining.
The former chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), cardiothoracic surgeon Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, claimed he never asked him to engage in any illegal activity or to support it.
When he was Environment Minister, Prof. Boateng submitted names of individuals in government who were impeding his attempts to combat what is known locally as “galamsey.”
Mr. Otchere Darko’s name appeared in a 36-page document that Prof. Boateng wrote and sent to the president, the chief of staff, and the police.
The report states: “We were prepared to remove Imperial Heritage from Kobro Forest when Mr. Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko called to inform me that he was the lawyer for Heritage Imperial Limited, a company that was destroying the Kobro and Apaprama Forest Reserves and had also polluted and changed the course of the River Offin, as can be seen in the satellite images below.
“I informed the President about the behaviour of Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, and he promised to deal with it.”
However, Mr. Otchere-Darko is retaliating.
The NPP stalwart claimed that he only called the eminent physician to get information about his client, a business that had permission to mine in the nation.
“Heritage had a mining exploration permit issued in July 2019, a forest entry permit issued in November 2018, and also an EPA permit yet the soldiers went and seized the equipment of Heritage and so I called the soldiers and was told that it was the Minister who had sanctioned them and so I asked the Minister what the issue was with the equipment seizures and the Minister said they were prospecting and not exploring and that was the conversation that we had.
“My intervention was to understand why a legitimate company with all the requisite permits was stopped from doing their work and that is what lawyers do,” he said in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM on Thursday.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng purposefully misrepresented his mediation, he continued, in an effort to harm his reputation.
“The Minister deliberately twisted the inquiry by a lawyer of a client’s issue to be an interference and the thing is, it was even a phone call that lasted not more than four minutes, and he ended by saying Heritage shouldn’t have been issued with the license,” Mr Otchere-Darko explained.
The outspoken politician claimed that the former minister had an incorrect understanding of his duties.
“It tells you how weak the [former] Minister’s understanding of his position is. If what I did was illegitimate, why didn’t he take the right action? He said he had reported me to the president as if he is a teacher and the president is a headmaster, and I am a prefect,” he added.
