DCE denies taking bribe from miners

The District Chief Executive of Amansie West, Alex Kwame Bonsu, has denied allegations he took bribes from some illegal miners in the district to enable them continue their activities.

His denial follows an allegation made by the Member of Parliament for Manso-Nkwanta, Professor Joseph Albert Quarm, that he has set up a task force headed by one Peasah, with the mandate of collecting money from the illegal miners every week to allow them continue mining in the district.

Prof Quarm, a mining expert, while speaking in an interview with Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM in connection with activities of illegal small scale miners in Ghana, especially in the Ashanti Region, alleged that Mr Bonsu’s dealings with galamseyers was working against the fight against illegal mining in the area.

He said: “The worst thing is that the DCE has established a task force that is taking money from the illegal miners. The DCE himself has also been demanding the money aside from the task force. And so if the DCE is taking money from the illegal miners, what do you expect? Definitely they will be empowered to continue doing the illegitimate mining and continue to damage the environment. That is not what we want. If you, the head of DISEC (District Security Council), are spearheading and taking money from the illegal miners what do you expect will happen?”

But reacting to these allegations also on the same programme, Mr Bonsu said there was no iota of truth in those allegations, hence should be ignored.

He said: “Those allegations are not true, especially coming from him. He adopted the same posture ahead of the elections and said all lies about me and the outgoing president and so I am not surprised he is continuing with this attitude. At a point he said that I had taken GHS85million from illegal miners to President Mahama to undertake his campaign. This person should not be taken seriously at all with his comments.

“If he said I took those monies, the NPP is now in power, they should investigate and make the findings public for everybody to know. There is no iota of truth in those allegations.”