Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, has accused several New Patriotic Party officials at Jubilee House of being actively involved in illegal small-scale mining, also known as galamsey.
These allegations are contained in his report on iilegal mining, which he submitted in 2021 and has since been leaked to the public.
In the signed 37-page report, the former Minister claimed that some NPP bigwigs hired Chinese nationals to engage in galamsey on their behalf.
“Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the President’s commitment to protect 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.”
According to the report, an NPP MP from the Ashanti Region used his position on the Minerals Commission to acquire dozens of large-scale concessions in his district, ostensibly for community mining purposes.
According to the report, he ended up selling these concessions to private individuals, including party members, for 200,000 Cedis each.
“This infuriated the party in the constituency so during the 2020 primaries to select a candidate the electorate voted against the sitting MP, who was more resourced than other candidates. Although there were allegations that he “camped” delegates and attempted to bribe them, he lost to a lesser known individual who did not have any financial muscle.”
