The Lands and Natural Resources Ministry has sought to discredit a supposed Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) report, implicating the military, the Minerals Commission, and some chiefs in illegal mining activities.
Some critics have asked why the Minister, John Peter Amewu, has not acted on it. In a Citi News interview however, he insisted that there are questions about the credibility of that report.
“There is no single instance where those names have come up at the ministry in support of illicit mining or that that they are working against us. But if anything of that nature comes up, I will be able to comment on it,” Mr. Amewu explained.
“I am not in a position to say that the report is credible. It is those that authored that are in the best position to comment,” he added.
Armed forces denies
Meanwhile, the Ghana Armed Forces is also discrediting the said report, which also incriminated some security personnel.
Colonel Aggrey Quashie, the Public Affairs Director of the GAF, said “we’ve not seen the report and nobody has given us any document saying this was done by their situation… till we see that report, we cannot speak to it.”
He noted that, the military had “personnel who have been deployed in most of these mining communities to check the very things we are being accused of.”
However, “there have been instances where we have arrested some ex-service men who are facing prosecution along with some of personnel who went to do illegal things and we are dealing with them according to our regulations,” Colonel Quashie added.
The Okyenhene, Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, is also demanding an immediate apology from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) for accusing him of engaging in ‘galamsey’ activities.
This follows the said BNI report which named the chief among scores of other chiefs from eight regions of the country as being engaged in illegal mining activities.
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