Wontumi will compensate Ashanti, and other regions for land degradation – Gbande

Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Mustapha Gbande has charged the New Patriotic Party to give up its Ashanti Regional Chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako for arrest and prosecution.

Mustapha Gbande who has been in the Ashanti Region after the NPP’s heavy defeat in the December 7 national Elections insists Chairman Wontumi has committed environmental crimes pillaging forest reserves and destroying rivers in his alleged illegal mining escapades.

Mustapha expressed frustration he has laid ambush for Wontumi but has since been unsuccessful locating where he has gone hiding after the NPP’s defeat to the NDC.

“I promised that in a week after winning power, we will arrest Wontumi. I have been searching for him and till now I don’t know where he is hiding. Anyone who knows his whereabouts should help me,” he appealed on Ultimate FM’s ‘Cup of Tea’.

Mustapha Gbande told host Julius Caesar Anadem Wontumi would be made to compensate Ghanaians for the damage he has caused and the danger his involvement in galamsey has posed to countless Ghanaians through the poisoning of freshwater bodies with chemicals like mercury and cyanide.

“Wontumi will compensate Ashanti, Western region and some parts of the Central Region for land degradation, water pollution and environmental pollution.”

“We will sell his machines to compensate Ghanaians. We will sell his houses to compensate Ghanaians,” he said.

The Deputy General Secretary of the NDC indicated that the party will proceed to the mining sites of Chairman Wontumi to inspect whether he has reclaimed mining shafts in compliance with Ghana’s mining regulations.

We are going to assess his mining sites to see whether he has done reclamation post-mining.

He threw a challenge to the NPP to do away with Chairman Wontumi to redeem the party from the indictment of a man he described as an unintelligent braggart.

Chairman Wontumi’s mining firm Akonta Mines has been sighted in a number of exposés detailing the horrors that illegal mining has done to Ghana’s water bodies and virgin forest reserves.

Environmental watchers have accused the Nana Akufo Addo-Dr. Bawumia administration of shielding him from arrest and prosecution.