Akufo-Addo’s failure to act on Professor Boateng’s report proves his complicity – Dr. Manteaw

Co-chair of the Ghana Mining Industry Transparency Initiative, Dr Steve Manteaw, said President Akufo-Addo’s failure to act on Professor Frimpong Boateng’s damaging report on the Ghana galamsey demonstrates that the government is not serious in its fight against the threat.

In a 36-page document, the former chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Commission on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) accused key political figures in the government of obstructing the fight against the galamsey and participating in it. President Akufo-Addo has yet to respond to the report released in 2021.

According to Dr Manteaw, such a report should prompt some form of government action to help address the concerns listed. “If we were a serious, serious country in acting on the recommendations of reports of this nature, we could have acted in a way that helps us respond to this threat,” he said. he said on JoyNews` Newsfile. “For example, once we know the issue with regard to vested interests at the top, you want to set an example of high-level political holders actually participating in the galamsey. for example, if this is a leader who is going to be tried for his participation in the galamsey, it will send a signal, it will at least make those who might be tempted to enter it fear God, ” he added.

According to him, the president’s inaction shows the government’s complicity with galamsey and nullifies any state efforts to combat it. “But at the presidential level, there is a certain complicity that is very difficult to combat. So I’ve always described the galamsey war as a charade and never really took the president seriously, especially when he said he was putting his job first. “Since 2021, when he received this report, what did he do with it? He said: