Competence vital in prosecuting galamseyers – Lecturer

The bail granted to Chinese ‘galamsey queen’ Asia Huang raises issues with the competence of the prosecution, Dr Ahmed Jinapor, a senior lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba, has said.

According to him, fallouts from the court hearings show clearly that Ms Huang and the four other accused persons have been slapped with the wrong charges rather than those relating to illegal small-scale mining in the country.

On Friday 2 June, Asia Huang was granted bail in the sum of GHS500,000 by an Accra High Court.

She is to provide two sureties.

Also, Ms Huang is to report to the Ghana Police Service and the Ghana Immigration Service twice a week for further investigations, according to Class91.3FM’s court correspondent Nabil Ahmed Rufai.

She is also to hand over her passport and other travelling documents to the court registry.

Ms Huang’s four other Chinese accomplices (Gao Jin Cheng, 45, Lu Qi Jun, 39, Haibin Gao, 26, and Zhang Zhi Peng, 23) have also been granted bail with the same conditions.

They have been standing trial for allegedly engaging in illegal small-scale mining (galamsey).

Commenting on this matter on TV3’s New Day on Saturday June 3, Dr Jinapor said: “This whole fight against galamsey is not an easy fight, there are so many facets of it. One is stopping them and, secondly, prosecuting them. When it comes to the issue of prosecution it takes the same format and the same way that normal prosecutions take. So if you do not have your facts and you are not able to proffer the right charges, then definitely you are going to make stumbling blocks.

“Based on what transpired regarding granting bail to Asia Huang, we are told that four new charges have been professed. One of them is undertaking small-scale mining operations contrary to section 99(1). So I ask myself what initial charges were given. Second, for providing mining support without valid registration from the Minerals Commission. So what charges were professed initially?”

He added: “At the end of the day when you look at all these things it goes down to competence, we cannot win this galamsey fight if we do not go on the level of competence. You need to be well prepared, we cannot use emotions, and we cannot use just common sense.”