Galamsey kingpins: I dare you to mention names! - Kwamena Duncan to Okudzeto Ablakwa

Former Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan has fired salvoes at the Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa over his recent comments on the galamsey menace in Ghana.

To Hon. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, there are kingpins behind the galamsey activities and until the government arrests them, its fight against galamsey will be unsuccessful.

He emphasized, in an interview with Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM's morning show ''Kokrokoo'', that till ''one galamsey overlord, one real architect, an actual financier is arrested and prosecuted", the efforts of the government, particularly regarding the burning the excavators belonging to illegal miners, will yield no fruitful results.

"How come not even one architect behind this galamsey operation has been arrested? To start a galamsey operation, you need millions of Ghana cedis and so the real perpetrators are not those small boys or the youth who are risking their lives.

"Instead of arresting these guys, we should make them an offer for them to lead us to the real kingpins; if we follow the chain, it will lead us to the barons. Unless we get the real perpetrators, we will always come back to square one," he further said.

But Hon. Kwamena Duncan has rubbished Hon. Okudzeto Ablakwa's comments.

Making his submissions on Wednesday's ''Kokrokoo'', Hon. Kwamena Duncan opined that Hon. Ablakwa made blanket statements.

To him, if indeed, the North Tongu MP thinks there are kingpins involved in illegal mining, then he should be able to go a step further to identify them.

He, therefore, challenged him (Okudzeto Ablakwa) to mention the names of the kingpins.

The former Regional Minister was of a strong view that the North Tongu MP is making ''an effort just to muddy the waters...It is just the surface action''.

''He should mention names...Once you take your pen, you sit and write; don't go under speculations. Show the person doing it...but if you write on a broad heading that the big men, who in this business are the big men? The implication of the use of the big men is to throw into the minds of the Ghanaian people that there are some big men protecting them (illegal miners)'', he added.