The Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Akosua Manu, has indicated that the appointment of ex-Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, as the chairperson of the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) is possibly the biggest mistake made by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.
Akosua Manu, a member of the communication team of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), said that Prof Frimpong-Boateng’s appointment was a mistake because he failed to act when he was in charge of the country’s effort to stop illegal mining (galamsey).
Speaking in an interview on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme, on October 30, 2023, the NPP communicator stated the former minister is now conveniently pointing fingers at people now that he is out of office.
“Whatever he has said till date, he himself has no moral right, as far as I’m concerned. Because when it mattered, when he sat in the chair, he made it nearly impossible to fight it – himself per what he said.
“… I don’t see why you had the position, you say nothing, you did nothing, and you look the other way when issues came. When issues came some of us defended it based on what he said,” she said.
Akosua Manu added, “You can turn around and start pointing fingers. It would be that the biggest mistake ever was to have put him in that position. Because if he himself knew all these things, especially with his son's involvement, then he shouldn’t have even ventured.”
Background:
The former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has made several accusations of corruption in the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government, including the allegation that the government is protecting illegal miners (galamseyers) operating in Ghana.
In a recent interview with the AFRICAWATCH magazine, Prof Frimpong also said that he rejected a $5 million bribe to approve a judgment debt of over $88 million to the private company, Apex Pollution Company Limited.
He added that it was a government official who decided to engage the company in the payment of the judgement debt even though the company had done no work.
“Sometime in July 2020, when I was at the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, I received a letter from the Ministry of Finance, requesting my approval for the payment of a judgment debt to the tune of US$88,247,246.63, please let me repeat it, US$88,247,246.63, to Apex Pollution Control Company. I could not believe my eyes. It had a lot of red flags. The Ministry of Environment had signed an agreement with the company in 2014 to carry out monitoring of vehicle emissions, but the project was not implemented at all.
“The company claimed it invested $6,613,520.63 in the project and sought a judgment debt. Somebody somewhere decided to engage the company in arbitration for the government, and in addition to its alleged initial investment of $6,613,520.63, offered the company $20,006,226 for a return on investment and $61,627,500 for the loss of income for 13 years. And this came up to a whopping $88,247,246.63,” he is quoted to have said in the October/November 2023 edition of the AFRICAWATCH magazine.
He added, “The Apex Pollution Control Company was going to get about $82 million for doing no work. So shocking! To me, there were several irregularities about it. I could see that a huge scandal was staring us right in the face. And I didn’t want to be part of it”.
The former science and technology minister further stated that he was told that the former Minister of State (in-charge of finance), Charles Adu Boahene, was likely behind the move when he confronted the Minister for Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, on the matter.
“The whole thing was too shady. I confronted Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta about it and he told me Charles Adu Boahen, the then deputy minister of finance was probably behind it. Soon after some people from Apex Pollution Control Company came to see me in my office and offered me a US$ 5 million bribe to approve the judgment debt for them. I rejected it and told them to disappear from my office,” he added.
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