Former minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng has denied allegations that state seized 500 excavators that had vanished during his tenure in office.
According to the heart surgeon, the allegations were baseless and mere fabrications which were made against him to cause his removal from the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on March 10, 2023 with GBC News he reconted how members of his own political party were sabotaging him internally, including persons at the Jubilee House, who were indulging in the galamsey (illegal small-scale mining) activities.
“No 500 excavators went messing, it was somebody who threw that into the media space to tag something of Frimpong Boateng. What am I doing with 500 excavators?
“The true story is that, at the start of Operation Vanguard thing, the soldiers were supposed to arrest the excavators.
“So, they go into the forest where they’re doing the mining and remove the control board. So, if they remove 20 control boards today, they report that they’ve mobilized 20 control boards.
“But then when you go away, then they bring new control boards and fix them and then off they go. So, we got the report that they had immobilized over 750 excavators so we appointed somebody to go around and check.
“When we went round, I think we got about 150, 200 that you could see. The rest had either been given to the owners or put in extra parts and moved away.
“And somebody put it out there, Frimpong Boateng has taken 500 excavators, what am I going to do with them?
“There was an orchestrating scheme even within the party and government to get you out.
“Look, why is it that when I left now everybody is in the forest? Other times, you dare not enter the forest.
“But let me tell you, I did not take one excavator for anything and they know the truth. Now things are coming up, we know those who are behind it and the party people who are there.
“People in government including Jubilee House are doing galamsey even now,” Professor Frimpong Boateng recounted.
Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng says the story of the ‘missing’ galamsey excavators was an orchestration by people in his party and government to get him out of officepic.twitter.com/T6G0UC2wbB
Former minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boate