I’m not 'cosy' with Asia Huang – Osei-Mensah

Ashanti Regional Minister Simon Osei-Mensah is demanding a retraction and apology from The Republic newspaper for a publication that he was caught “cosy” with popular Chinese galamseyer Asia Huang.

It has been widely reported that Asia Huang blackmails some ‘big men’ in the country with sex tapes to keep them quiet while she engages in illegal small-scale mining.

To this end, in an interview with Kwadwo Asare-Baffour Acheampong (KABA) on Ekosii Sen on Asempa FM on Thursday, 11 May, Mr Osei-Mensah expressed dissatisfaction with the newspaper’s publication headlined, “Revealed: Galamsey queen ‘cozy cozy’ with Minister” with a picture of him and Ms Huang.

He said the report that he was “cosy” with Ms Huang was false and a pure fabrication.

“I’m media-friendly and I don’t want trouble between me and the media, but the person who wrote the story, if this is his style of journalism then it’s bad. Because if you can prepare a pure concoction of falsehood, lies, fabrications, pure bad journalism, then it’s serious,” he stated.

“My advice to him is to retract and apologise to me. I don’t want any problem with any media person, but if he doesn’t, I’ll redeem my image and my name. I’ve worked for my name, I’ve worked for my dignity, and I have to protect my integrity. So if he doesn’t retract and apologise, when I take the necessary action the media shouldn’t come pleading. I want the reporter to do that willingly.”

Mr Osei-Mensah also disclosed his visit to some galamsey sites in the region showed that illegal miners had abandoned the sites.