A senior lecturer at the Kumasi Technical University (KsTU), Dr. Solomon Kwarteng Fokuo has slammed former President John Mahama for exposing his hatred for Chairman Wontumi following his hogwash statement on the operations of Akonta Mining Company Limited.
He is appalled that instead of Mr. John Mahama focusing on supporting an indigenous large scale miner, he is rather focused on wanting to destroy Chairman Wontumi.
“Instead of you speaking to support him, you want to destroy him”, Dr. Solomon Kwarteng Fokuo rubbished the tactic by Mr. Mahama to attack Chairman Wontumi.
Dr. Solomon Kwarteng Fokuo in an interview on Wontumi TV stated that Mr. John Mahama has failed to provide any evidence that Akonta Mining- a large scale mining company is into illegal mining activities.
Instead of spreading falsehood about the operations of Akonta Mining, Dr. Fokuo advised Mr. Mahama to speak the “truth” when addressing the issue.
He insisted that Mr. Mahama’s hands were soiled and Ghanaians haven’t forgotten how he wrongfully signed documents to give his younger brother concessions for him to mine bauxite days after he had been voted out of office.
“If he wants to be president, he must learn speak the truth a little. It is as if he hates Chairman Wontumi so he is engaged in cheap propaganda like a serial caller”, Dr. Forkuo said as monitored by Wontumionline.com.
Mr. Mahama made a post on Facebook that reads : That penchant by the president to absolve his appointees and other close associates of any wrongdoing as he has done with the ongoing investigations into the operations of Akonta Mining Company is a serious dent on the already deteriorating image of the Office of the President.
As though proud of that dishonourable badge, ‘the clearing agent’, Nana Akufo-Addo has yet again justified the appropriateness of his nickname with the seeming presidential exoneration of Akonta Mining, a company owned by a member of his political party (NPP) and accused of illegal gold mining in the country’s forest reserves.
However, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has exonerated Akonta Mining Company Limited from any wrongdoing, stressing that the Company is not involved in any illegal mining anywhere in Ghana.
“Let me respond briefly to the chairperson on the issue of illegal mining,” President Akufo-Addo remarked after concerns about the menace came to the fore at the 28th National and 16th Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Catholic Diocesan Priests Association held in Koforidua.
“I want to assure him and all of you that Akonta Mining is not engaged in any illegal mining anywhere in Ghana as we speak.
“Further, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has through the agency of the Forestry Commission with the assistance of the military made the effort to cordon off all 294 sites of forest reserves in the country and rid them of illegal mining as we speak.”
President Akufo-Addo was responding to a concern expressed by the chairperson of the occasion, Ing. Ken Ashigbey, regarding Akonta Mining Company Limited’s supposed infraction of the laws to mine in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve in the Western North Region.