Tamale Central lawmaker, Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed has slammed the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) headed by President Akufo-Addo for what he describes as shielding persons engaged in illegal mining.

Mr. Muratala Muhammed said the government is unwilling and unprepared to end galamsey which is destroying water bodies in the country and that the president is only paying lip service with his so-called fight against the menace.

Singling out Akonta Mining during his submission on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana on Thursday morning, he said, “You have credible evidence that the gentleman was mining in an area he could not engage there and yet nothing happens.”

“I don’t know why that gentleman [Chairman Wontumi]  had become so powerful, I can tell you if it was me or any other person, we would have been in jail by now,” he stressed.

If it was anyone else, the Tamale Central Constituency legislator noted that “the President would have gone any length to ensure that because we are engaged in an illegality we should be dealt with.”

He added that “It is a clear indication that certain people are above the law

Akonta Mining owned by the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi-Boasiako commonly called Chairman Wontumi has been in the news for mining in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve in the Western Region without recourse to the law.

This has led the Media Coalition Against Galamsey recently revived its calls for the arrest and prosecution of directors and officers of Akonta Mining Limited for their alleged involvement in the illegality.

But speaking at the 28th National and 16th Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Catholic Diocesan Priests Association in Koforidua, President Nana Akufo-Addo stressed that Akonta Mining has not been involved in any wrongdoing.

“I want to assure you all that Akonta Mining is not engaged in any form of illegal mining anywhere in Ghana as we speak,” he insisted.

By: Bernard Ralph Adams | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana