Galamsey industry worth $6 billion; Ghana must leverage it - Kludjeson

The Professor Frimpong-Boateng report on galamsey has unearthed that the galamsey industry holds about US$6 billion worth of money that Ghana can optimise and leverage, Mr Prince Kofi Kludjeson, the very first president of the Association of Ghana Industries, has observed.

Mr Kludjeson, who is one of the pioneers of Ghana’s telecom industry and one of the main brains behind the creation of the Ghana Stock Exchange, told Korku Lumor on the Class Morning Show on Monday, 8 May 2023, that: “If you take Ghana today, the biggest headache we are having today is looking for US$3 billion dollars and you’ll never get it until you have a button on an equity”.

The founder of the Ghana Chamber of Telecommunication noted: “If you look at Frimpong-Boateng’s report, if I were the government and all those who are fighting him, [they] should look closer at the report, [and] will see the answers there”.

“The answer is that so-called galamsey or illegal mining has about US$6 billion floating out there, ‘go and pick it’. That was in the report. ‘And I’m telling them, as a doctor, or as a surgeon, I’ve seen these lapses, so, let’s focus and go and solve the problem so that the gold that is not owned by AshantiGold and all that, we are Ghanaian-owned, not bounded by equity, let’s go and find a way to optimise it and transform it into money’”.

“These are my understandings as a businessman. That is the positive thing that the Frimpong-Boateng report has put out there”, Mr Kludjeson said.

The 37-page leaked report on galamsey authored by Prof Frimpong-Boateng, who once chaired the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining while he was the minister of environment, science, technology and innovation, named some top government officials, including people at the presidency, for supporting and engaging in galamsey.

In the report, the world-renowned heart surgeon said: “Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the president’s commitment to protect the environment".

"I can state without any equivocation that many party officials from the national to the unit committee level had their friends, PAs, agents, relatives, financiers or relatives engaged in illegal mining", parts of Prof Frimpong-Boateng's report read.

Reacting to the allegations in a statement, the office of the president indicated that the report was not an official document delivered submitted to the presidency.

It described it as a catalogue of personal grievances by Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, intended to respond to some issues he faced as Chairperson of the IMCIM.

The statement explained that the document was handed to the chief of staff at the office of the president on 19 March 2021, at an informal meeting, where Prof Frimpong-Boateng complained about public attacks and criticisms made about his tenure as chairperson of the IMCIM.

“This was after Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s tenure as Minister had not been renewed by the president of the Republic in his second term. The document did not have a transmittal or cover letter nor, indeed, an addressee, such as to suggest that it was submitted to the chief of staff for action. It is noteworthy that the IMCIM was a creature of cabinet, and any formal report on its activities would, normally, be submitted to cabinet through the cabinet secretary, or directly to the president of the Republic as chairperson of cabinet. Till date, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng has done neither,” the statement said.

It added that while Prof. Frimpong-Boateng makes serious allegations against some government appointees, as having been involved in, supporting or interfering with the fight against illegal mining, not a single piece of evidence was adduced or presented to enable the claims to be properly investigated.

The office of the president described the allegations contained in the document as hearsay.

According to the statement, since Prof. Frimpong-Boateng’s meeting with the chief of staff in March 2021, he has taken no step nor acted in furtherance of the matters contained in his report.

The statement assured the public that the president’s commitment to fighting illegal mining is unassailable, and the office of the president welcomes any information on illegal mining activities which provides a credible basis for investigations to be conducted by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service.