Akufo-Addo is complicit in the galamsey menace – Murtala Mohammed

Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Tamale Central has flayed President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his laxity in the galamsey menace.

According to the lawmaker, the President cannot say he is not aware of the menace that is destroying water bodies across the country.

Speaking on Accra based TV3, Hon. Mohammed said the President cannot absolved himself from the canker.

“The President is an accomplice,” he stressed, adducing the reason that “he is the Commander-In-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces. He must take action”.

“Now when you have leading members of your party who have been cited and identified, some of them captured on video engaging this and nothing happens, why won’t I say he is an accomplice?” Murtala added.

The MP also alleged that the president is aware of all incidents where the personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces were sent to provide security for illegal miners.

“Military officers were instructed to go provide security for Chinese who are engaged in galamsey. Who instructed them? The Commander in Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces, the president, knew about their presence there,” he said.

He added that even if the president did not know about the incident, he failed to hold persons who were implicated accountable after videos of military men protecting illegal miners were published in the media.

He said the metropolitan, municipal, and district chief executives (MMDCEs) in whose areas river bodies have been muddied and forest reserves degraded have been reappointed by President Akufo-Addo.

Murtala made these remarks while commending the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, for comments he made on the failure of the state to fight illegal mining.

The Asantehene, while addressing a delegation from the US Embassy in Ghana, questioned why Ghana as a country has failed to stop the menace of ‘galamsey’ even after the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has put his political career on the line to stop it.

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