Minister raids hotel with AK47

The Central Regional Minister Samuel Sarpong, on Tuesday armed with AK47 assault rifle' raided Amonoo Royal Hotel at Dunkwa-on-Offin, in search of foreigners who are alleged to be involved in galamsey operations.

The Minister accompanied by armed policemen and immigration officers' in a ‘Rambo' style invasion, caused people running helter skelter with front desk operators abandoning their duty post.

Mr Sarpong and his entourage were in two Toyota Land Cruisers and a blue commercial Benz Sprinter mini-bus with registration number CR 707-ll, on arrival in Dunkwa around 7:38am, drove straight to the Amonoo Royal I hotel where he forcibly opened rooms in search of Chinese and other illegal miners, exposing guests and customers in the hotel to fear and panic.

Hotel attendants and security men had to run for cover upon seeing the emerging danger. The operation, which lasted for some 39 minutes, was carried out by armed security men drawn from the Cape Coast Metropolitan police Command.

About l6 different buildings in the municipality the entourage visited, had their windows and doors smashed and destroyed all in the name of searching for foreigners. In all, 47 foreigners were arrested and transported to Accra.

Mr Sarpong who is gradually gaining notoriety was recently in the news for allegedly slapping a truck driver in a road rage at Kasoa.

The Chief Executive Officer of the hotel, Ben Amonoo, told DAILY GUIDE that he was not even allowed to intervene.

"Upon seeing the armed police and the regional minister, I had wanted to talk to him so that the search could be conducted in a more diplomatic way so that it could not harm my business, but they did not allow that and they forcibly broke into the rooms, disrupting activities” Mr Amonoo said.

He said that when they entered some of the rooms, some guests were even naked.

The hotel was closed down for 48 hours before activities resumed again. It would be recalled that government, repatriated about 136 Chinese immigrants a couple of months ago after several mine disasters had claimed lives of hundreds within the municipality and other galamsey mining in the country.