Osafo Maafo clarifies 'Galamsey Queen' freedom comment

The Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo Maafo has clarified some comments he made on government's deportation of Chinese national, Aisha Huang, popularly known as 'Galamsey Queen'.

The Minister allegedly said the prosecution of the notorious Chinese national wouldn't have added anything to our economy, while addressing a townhall meeting in the United States.

“Today, the main company that is helping develop the infrastructure system in Ghana is Sinohydro, it is a Chinese Company. It is the one that is going to help process our bauxite and provide about $2 billion to us,” he said.

"So, when there are these kinds of arrangements, there are other things behind the scenes. Putting that lady [Aisha] in jail in Ghana is not going to solve your economic problems,” he said.

These comments have generated controversy in the past few days and many anti-galamsey crusaders have accused government of pandering to the Chinese.

However, in a post on Facebook, the office of the Senior Minister has added some clarification to the what Yaw Osafo Maafo said.

Read the clarification below

What he meant was that the matter of prosecution had been dealt by a court of competent jurisdiction and that Ghanaians should focus on the economic gains of the government and how best we can consolidate the gains.

The Akufo-Addo's government is highly committed to the fight against GALAMSEY to the extent of establishing an inter ministerial committee to deal with the worrying situation.

However, there are pertinent issues we should be looking at as a nation such as the creation of employment for our teeming youth, industrialization, infrastructural deficit, domestic revenue mobilisation, emphasis on technical not grammarian education and how to sustain funding for governments policies and programmes.

These were the issues Senior Minister was emphasising instead of limiting the town hall meeting to the discussion of Aisha when the matter had been determined by the court. May God help us!".