Kennedy Agyapong, MP for Assin Central
The Member of Parliament for Assin Central Constituency in the Central Region has renewed allegations against the Ghana Armed Forces accusing some of them of being members of the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC).
According to him, because they are aligned to NDC, they have deployed officers who are loyal to NDC to areas where the government is fighting illegal mining but instead of them to focus on their core mandate, they try to frustrate the process by taking money and allow galamsayers a field day
Speaking on Oman FM’s National Agenda show Wednesday, May 2, 2018, Kennedy Agyapong, said initially he was against the use of the military in the fight against galamsey until when he realized that their involvement led to significant improvement in polluted water bodies.
“About six month ago we were winning the fight against galamsey but all of a sudden the military started taking bribes and allowing them to operate,” he alleged.
Giving a chilling account of how some military personnel were taking money from illegal miners and allowing them to operate, he said: “The first time I got to know was when some guys from Winneba who were hitherto engaged in illegal mining in Wassa came to tell me that some military officers are aiding illegal miners. There I got the interest to do my own investigations to ascertain things for myself. Have you seen what has happened? God has blessed me.
The Minister was arguing with me that it’s not that military who are aiding the illegal miners”, he said
The outspoken NPP legislator said “what I know about the military is mind-boggling. You said we shouldn’t talk about the military. The day I blasted that military officer the whole national security went for a meeting and accused me of insulting the military.”
“Today, look at what has happened. The image of the military is going down because instead of defending the nation they have turned around and are going about extorting money from illegal miners.”
His anger stems from the report of how a military officer shot his colleague from extorting money from illegal miners.
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