Ranking Member on Parliament’s Lands and Forestry Committee, Dr. Rashid Pelpuo, says Professor Frimpong-Boateng is primarily being targeted by government because of his scathing report on the state of galamsey in the country.

According to him, the report had struck a raw nerve of the government resulting in their hostile reaction to the Professor and the subsequent rubbishing of the report.

He said, while it was commendable that the Special Prosecutor had taken up the case to investigate allegations of corruption and corruption-related offences against the members of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining, such investigation will not be complete without the arrest of key government officials who were named in the document.

“We are very much convinced that the state, the special prosecutor is aware of the dangers we’re facing today, the extent to which Ghana is put in a situation of destruction over years of galamsey and cooperation by government itself,” he said on JoyNews’ Newsfile on Saturday.

Already, the Minority in Parliament is demanding the arrest of Gabby Otchere Darko, the President’s cousin and other key ruling party and state officials who were named in the Professor’s report.

This follows the arrest and bail of the Professor by the Special Prosecutor in relation to his alleged involvement in some corruption-related offences leveled against the IMCIM.

But Dr. Rashid Pelpuo is convinced the Professor’s arrest is a tactic to shut him up about the rot in the government.

“And if the significance is placed on Frimpong Boateng to the extent that he’s questioned and even arrested, it shows that there is something significant in the report. And the most significant thing is that names of government officials are mentioned, and these names have been seen to be part and parcel with the destructive activities that are going on.

“So nobody had thought about the arrest of Frimpong Boateng over the destruction of the machinery, the excavators. I mean those are just ‘by the way, how do we get this man quiet?’. That is the reason they got him. But essentially they’re targeting him because of the report. And the report is touching directly on the nerve of government.

“What we’re saying is this, that this is all triggered by a report done by the committee chaired by Prof. Frimpong Boateng. And we’re interested in all of that because the people we’re dealing with, the NPP we’re dealing with cannot be trusted in all these matters.

“In fact, it’s an indication of how destructive they have gone. They have taken the excavators, they have corrupted the system, they have taken gold nuggets, [and] they have done everything that is unthinkable by state officials.”