Presidency galamsey saga: 'Akufo-Addo is the professor of cover-ups' - Bernard Mornah

Bernard Mornah, a former National Chairman of the Peoples National Convention (PNC), has accused President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of being a master when it comes to shielding his appointees who are caught committing crimes.

Mornah, who made these remarks while reacting to an order by Akufo-Addo for the police to investigate allegations of some staff at the presidency being involved in illegal small-scale mining, said that the probe would amount to nothing.

According to him, all the investigations the president has called for when his appointees are caught red-handed committing acts of corruption, always end up with them being exonerated.

“... we have seen a lot of investigations and when the investigations are being done, we see how they end. We saw the investigation done by Ken Yeboah which led to the killing of the people, they said were armed robbers. What happened, the end result is that we always try to cover up.

“And as for cover-ups, President Akufo-Addo is the professor of cover-ups. The Austrian visa scandal was cleared. The cash-for-seat scandal was cleared. The 5 million contaminated oil scandal, where an unregistered company got a government contract to sell contaminated fuel worth 5 million, was cleared.

“President Akufo-Addo has cleared all these things but today, he is instructing the police to go and investigate the propriety or otherwise of allegations made by Frimpong Boateng,” he said in Twi.

“Who in this country will believe that the president means anything good given all this plethora of evidence,” he added.

Background:

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ordered the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to investigate allegations made by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng about the involvement of some staff at the presidency in illegal small-scale mining (galamsey).

According to the Daily Graphic, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of the Criminal Investigations Department is in charge of the probe.

The order by the president comes after Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, a former Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, in an interview on GBC, which GhanaWeb monitored, averred that government officials were behind the operations of illegal miners (galamseyers) in the country.

According to the renowned surgeon, these officials buy the excavators and other equipment for these illegal miners and pump huge sums of money into the project to keep them in business.

Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng's comment comes on the heels of allegations in 2020 that some 500 seized excavators from illegal miners were missing.

He described the news as false and an attempt by some persons in government to sack him as the Environment Minister at the time.

"Let me tell you that I did not take one excavator for anything, they know the truth. Now things are coming up; we know those who are behind it and the party people who are there; people in government, including Jubilee House, who are doing galamsey and so on, even now," he said.

"There was an orchestrated scheme, even within the party and government, to get me out. Why is it that when I left now everyone is in the forest?" he added.

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