'Akufo-Addo is right, my client is just being subjected to public persecution' - Lawyer of Akonta Mining

Lead Counsel for Akonta Mining Company, Kwame Adom Appiah says his client feels vindicated by President Akufo-Addo’s comment that the mining firm owned by Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party Bernard Antwi Boasiako, aka Wontumi, was not involved in any form of illegal mining.

Adom Appiah insists the operations of the company never contravened the country’s mining law.

President Akufo-Addo, speaking at the 8th National and 16th Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Catholic Diocesan Priests Association on Wednesday, said the mining company “is not engaged in any illegal mining anywhere in Ghana as we speak.

“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 an 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 responded 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 Region.

Talking to Wontumi TV on Thursday, the lawyer said his client is just being subjected to public persecution.

“State institutions responsible for the investigation were given all evidence and realized that people had falsely accused Akonta mining. Forestry Commission and minerals commission were all involved and facts proved, Akonta wasn’t engaged in any illegal activity,” he said as he chastised some media houses for deliberately engaging in public persecution of his client.

“On the compound of the mining company, they had their own dam which doesn’t run into any water body but we had some media houses in Ghana saying otherwise,” he stated.

Activities of Akonta Mining in the Tano Nimiri Forest are being investigated by the Office of the Special Prosecutor.