Convenor of the Media Coalition against Galamsey, Dr Ken Ashigbey has asked the Office of the Special Prosecutor and Inspector General of Police to investigate the alleged involvement of Akonta Mining in illegal mining in the year 2022.

His comment comes after President Akufo-Addo, speaking at the 8th National and 16th Biennial Congress of the National Union of Ghana Catholic Diocesan Priests Association on Wednesday, said the mining firm “is not engaged in any illegal mining anywhere in Ghana as we speak.”

President Akufo-Addo was responding to a question by Mr. Ashigbey, who chaired the event, with regards to Akonta Mining Company Limited’s mining activity in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve in the Western North Region.

However reacting to this in an interview on Joy FM’s Newsnight on Wednesday, Mr Ashigbey stated that “it is instructive to hear the President defend that Akonta Mining Limited is not involved in any illegality as we speak.”

“If you look at the petition that we sent to the IGP and Attorney General and we copied to the President and for which we sent a reminder, we were talking about the incident that Erastus has reported and also the press release issued by the Lands Minister in September and the statement issued by the Minerals Commission in collaboration with the Minister … so we were referring to illegality that had happened in 2022,” he added.

According to him, crime is not time-bound.

“I would want to give the President the benefit of the doubt, but say to the OSP and the IGP that that investigation needs to happen, of what happened in 2022 for which the Minerals Commission issued a release in support of what the Lands Minister had said, for which the people of Samraboi fought,”

According to him, questions ought to be asked on the ownership of equipment on the mining site as well as the structures destroyed.

It would be recalled that Akonta Mining Limited, which belongs to New Patriotic Party’s Ashanti Region Chairman, Bernard Antwi-Boasiako was stopped from mining in the Tano Nimiri forest reserve in October 2022 by the Lands Ministry.

According to the Ministry, even though Akonta Mining Limited had a mining lease to undertake mining operations in some parts of Samreboi, outside the Forest Reserve, the company had no mineral right to undertake any mining operations in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve.

Meanwhile, the Special Prosecutor is currently investigating the matter.