The Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale Central, Alhassan Suhuyini, has berated the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government for its failure to curb illegal small-scale mining despite all the resources it has used in the fight against the menace.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo government has spent over $300 million just in the last three years to fight galamsey, but the menace seems to be worsening.
Suhuyini, who made these remarks on Metro TV's Good Morning Ghana programme on Tuesday, monitored by GhanaWeb, added that the over GH¢300 million spent was the expenditure appropriation for the inter-ministerial committee on galamsey alone and does not take into account appropriations made to other ministries and agencies for the fight against the menace.
"By 2020, according to allocations in the budget, the inter-ministerial committee alone was to be allocated GH¢33 million every quarter. If all releases should have indeed been made to the inter-ministerial committee, it would have meant that in the three years of its operation, they well allocated GH¢300 million.
"The is for the inter-ministerial committee alone; you don't talk about the task force, the Ministry of Lands, the Ministry of Defense, and the budgets that are located to all of them in this (galamsey) fight. GH¢308 million," he said.
The MP made these remarks while reacting to a report on galamsey in Ghana by the former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng.
In his report, Prof Frimpong-Boateng, the former chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), named members of parliaments and top government officials who are allegedly involved in illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) in Ghana.
Portions of his report indicated that these MPs and government officials were either directly involved in galamsey or were using their power to protect those involved in the menace.
The 36-page report, which Prof. Frimpong addressed to the Chief of Staff and the Ghana Police Service, according to myjoyonline.com, implicated the former MP for Manso Nkwanta, Joseph Albert Quarm; director of operations at the presidency, Lord Commey; executive assistant and head of social media at the presidency, Charles Nii Teiko; and Frank Asiedu Bekoe, director of political affairs at the Office of the Chief of Staff.
Prof. Frimpong Boateng also accused the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, of hatching a plot to bring him down over his (Frimpong Boateng's) fight against the menace.
Even though some government officials cited in the report have refuted the allegations, the Office of the President has indicated that the report was not formally delivered to the Office of the President.
It described the 37-page report as a catalogue of personal grievances by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, intended to respond to some issues he faced as Chairperson of the IMCIM.
It added that while Prof. Frimpong-Boateng makes serious allegations against some government appointees as having been involved in, supporting or interfering with the fight against illegal mining, not a single piece of evidence was adduced or presented to enable the claims to be properly investigated.
The Office of the President described the allegations contained in the document as hearsay.
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Galamsey has now been more rampant in recent times