President Akufo-Addo’s cousin has denied charges made by former Environment Minister Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng that he interfered with his efforts to combat illegal mining.
Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, the former Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), stated he never asked the cardiothoracic surgeon to partake in or condone illegality.
This comes after Prof Boateng supplied names of persons in government who thwarted his efforts to combat ‘galamsey’ when he was Environment Minister.
Prof. Boateng’s name appeared on a 36-page paper sent to the president, the Chief of Staff, and the police.
“We were about to dislodge Imperial Heritage from Kobro Forest when Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko called to tell me that he was the lawyer for Heritage Imperial Limited, a company that was destroying the Kobro and Apaprama Forest Reserves while also polluting and diverting the course of the River Offin, as can be seen in the satellite images below.”
“I informed the President about Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko’s behavior, and he promised to deal with it.”
Mr. Otchere-Darko, on the other hand, is fighting back.
According to the NPP stalwart, he just called the renowned medical specialist to inquire about his client – a corporation with mining licences in the country.
“Even though Heritage had a mining exploration permit issued in July 2019, a forest entry permit issued in November 2018, and an EPA permit, the soldiers went and took the company’s equipment. I called the soldiers and was told that the Minister had sanctioned them. I then asked the Minister what the problem was with the equipment seizures, and the Minister responded that they were prospecting rather than exploring. That was the topic of our conversation.
In an interview with Citi FM in Accra on Thursday, he stated, “My intervention was to understand why a legitimate company with all the necessary permits was stopped from doing their work. That is what lawyers do.”
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng purposefully misrepresented his mediation, he continued, in an effort to harm his reputation.
Mr. Otchere-Darko stated that the Minister “deliberately twisted the inquiry by a lawyer of a client’s issue to be an interference and the thing is, it was even a phone call that lasted not more than four minutes, and he ended by saying Heritage shouldn’t have been granted the license.”
The outspoken politician claimed that the former minister had an incorrect understanding of his duties.
“It shows how little the [former] Minister understands his position.” If what I did was illegal, why didn’t he take the appropriate action? He claimed he reported me to the president “as if he were a teacher and the president was a headmaster and I was a prefect,” he added.
Original Story on: myjoyonline.com
