Destruction Of Chairman Wontumi’s Mining Equipment Revisted – Lawyer Insists It Was Unlawful
A private legal practitioner, John Darko, has given a harrowing account to corroborate what NPP chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako, has often said about how the former president, John Dramani Mahama callously caused the destruction of his fleet of movable equipment at his mining site.
The the task force who were from the Inter Ministerial
played the role of “master destroyers” bulldozed their way onto the premises of Hansol Company Limited owned by Mr. Antwi Boasiako fondly called Chairman Wontumi heinously caused the destruction of 500 excavators and 400 pick-up vehicles whose cost could hit several millions of dollars.
The also made with some valuables including money, gold and some other equipment and later set the entire place in flames even though they found
Mr. Darko who is a law lecturer at GIMPA and also a personal lawyer of Chairman Wontumi said before the flame of destruction swept across the holding portion of the mines in September 2013, desperate pleas were made for the “destroyers” to consider the company status as a register entity engaged in a legitimate business but all these fell on deaf ears.
“The decision was totally unlawful because we produced every document they needed to ascertain the genuineness of the company’s operations but they went ahead without any regard for the investor’s huge losses.”
Some workers who saw the incident described it as “a kind of hell-fire descending on a serene mining site.”
Lawyer Darko gave the lamentation when he appeared on Wontumi TV/Radio’s early morning show on Tuesday, hosted by Oheneba Nana Asiedu in Kumasi.
He said the destruction had no legal basis and might have been prompted by a “feeling of envy.”
Chairman Wontumi who has this same line of thinking claims it was “witch hunting.”
With the collapse of the mining business, Hansol Company Ltd, according to him, which was one of the successful and top privately owned mining companies operating mainly in the Western Region meant his daily returns of “one million dollars was gone.”
Chairman Wontumi Narrates His Ordeal
“At one time, former President Mahama arranged for a meeting with me because of reports that I was engaging in illegal mining but the meeting turned out to be an attempt by him to woo me into the NDC, the party which he leads..
The former President showed appreciation for my smartness after I had shown him a proof of my genuine license and other legitimate legal document.
” This guy you’re too smart.This was after I had told him how much I earned each day.”
According to Chairman Wontumi, he was immediately targeted by the former leader, after he declined a request from him to cross-carpet with his wealth and support him in politics.
Chairman Wontumi who is the Managing Director of Hansol said, “the company was ransacked by an inter-ministerial task force made up of security personnel on suspicion that they had brought in some Chinese nationals to engage in illegal mining activities.”
“I’m convinced that the former President, John Dramani Mahama, deliberately targeted my business and destroyed it so I took the matter to court for redress.”