Galamsey fight: Kabila fires Kan-Dapaah over 'hollow' national security

Dr James Kwabena Bomfeh, a former General Secretary of the Convention People's Party (CPP), has said that the brouhaha surrounding the report on illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) submitted by the former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, is an indication of failure in Ghana's national security system.

According to him, a working and effective national security must have been investigating the allegations made by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng when the report was submitted to the Office of the President to either discredit his allegations or hold the persons found culpably accountable.

Speaking in an interview on Asempa FM on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, Dr. Bomfeh, popularly known as Kabila, stated that the current Minister for National Security, Albert Kan-Dapaah, has failed in his duties.

"I'm disappointed, and I think the president showed it by being worried... This is a shame for the national security minister. This report, whether it was properly submitted or not, was by no means a person than Prof. Frimpong-Boateng and should not have been ignored.

"This report was submitted in 2021, and we are now in 2023, so this report did not cross any national security radial for you to have even pre-empted it, and if it is not true, rubbish it.

"The president should be very worried that the key architecture that sustains government, which is the intelligence backbone, is hollow – if it exists, it is hollow... The president must look at his national security and intelligence subsector; it is destroying him," he said in Twi.

The former CPP general secretary made these remarks while reacting to a report on galamsey in Ghana by the former Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng.

In his report, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, the former chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), named members of parliament and top government officials who are allegedly involved in illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) in Ghana.

Portions of his report indicated that these MPs and government officials were either directly involved in galamsey or were using their power to protect those involved in the menace.

The 36-page report, which Prof. Frimpong addressed to the Chief of Staff and the Ghana Police Service, according to myjoyonline.com, implicated the former MP for Manso Nkwanta, Joseph Albert Quarm; director of operations at the presidency, Lord Commey; executive assistant and head of social media at the presidency, Charles Nii Teiko; and Frank Asiedu Bekoe, director of political affairs at the Office of the Chief of Staff.

Prof. Frimpong Boateng also accused the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, of hatching a plot to bring him down over his (Frimpong Boateng's) fight against the menace.

Even though some government officials cited in the report have refuted the allegations, the Office of the President has indicated that the report was not formally delivered to the Office of the President.

It described the 37-page report as a catalogue of personal grievances by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, intended to respond to some issues he faced as Chairperson of the IMCIM.

It added that while Prof. Frimpong-Boateng makes serious allegations against some government appointees as having been involved in, supporting or interfering with the fight against illegal mining, not a single piece of evidence was adduced or presented to enable the claims to be properly investigated.

The Office of the President described the allegations contained in the document as hearsay.

IB/WA