Convenor of the Coalition Against Galamsey Ghana, Dr. Kenneth Ashigbey, is calling for drastic sentencing of ‘galamsey’ kingpins, describing their act as “mass murder”.
He argues those destroying water bodies and forest reserves are like murderers and should be treated with the utmost sentences to serve as a deterrent to others.
His comments follow the sentencing of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Boasiako, also known as Wontumi.
Commenting on the development with JoyNews moments after the sentencing, Dr. Ashigbey made a case for those engaging in galamsey to be treated same as murderers.
“The reason why we need to be drastic in the sentencing of kingpins who are involved in Galamsey is that this, what they do is mass murder. If anybody had taken a gun and shot anybody, we’ll be asking for the maximum sentence,” he noted.
He attributed the recent devastating floods in Samraboi to the ongong galamsey, citing other damning effects of the canker, including diseases and others as the reason for such persons to be treated with iron fists.
“These people who are involved in this, the flood that happened in Samraboi, the recent flood, part of it is because of the issues of Galamsey. People are dying from kidney diseases, renal diseases are happening, children are being deformed, pregnant women are dying from stillbirth and all of that.”
He also described illegal miners as “economic saboteurs.”
Background
The High Court in Accra found Wontumi guilty, convicted him and sentenced him to 20 years’ imprisonment in the Samraboi mining concession case.
The Accra High Court sentenced Chairman Wontumi, to 20 years in prison in a trial in which he and his company, Akonta Mining Limited, were found guilty on six counts relating to the assignment of mineral rights without ministerial approval and facilitating an unlicensed mining operation.
That was after the court, presided over by Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay, held that the prosecution had proved its case that Chairman Wontumi and Akonta Mining permitted Henry Okoom and Michael Gyedu Ayisi to undertake mining activities on the company’s concession without securing the prior approval of the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, and thereby facilitated illegal mining on the land.
In addition to the jail term, Chairman Wontumi will pay GH¢120,000, in default of which he will serve three years in prison.
His company, however, will pay GH¢180,000 on two counts.
Relying largely on circumstantial evidence, the court was of the view that the absence of ministerial approval was never contested by the defence, describing the admission as implicit since no application for approval had been been made by the company.
Chairman Wontumi had told the court he had granted Henry Okoom permission only to reclaim land by planting coconut, and not to mine.
He said he did not know Okoom was a small-scale miner, maintaining that Okoom had presented himself as a mine support service provider.
The court, however, held that this explanation could not stand.
It added that Chairman Wontumi led no evidence to verify Okoom’s claimed reclamation experience, and that Okoom, in unchallenged testimony, told the court he mined on unmined portions of the concession to recover costs after Chairman Wontumi failed to give him money for the reclamation work.
Relying on the principles of circumstantial evidence set out in Duah v The Republic [1987-88] 1 GLR 343, the court found that no reasonable explanation existed to rival the conclusion that Chairman Wontumi had knowingly permitted Okoom to mine.
It dismissed as an afterthought Chairman Wontumi’s later explanation that he expected Okoom to recover his costs from the eventual sale of matured coconuts.
Citing the exceptions in the seminal case of Morkor v Kuma, the court lifted Akonta Mining’s corporate veil, finding no functioning management or executive board within the company.
It held that Chairman Wontumi was the true de facto holder of the mineral right and the sole controlling mind of the company during the period the offences were committed.
“The A3’s corporate veil should be lifted as there is no real difference between the two (Chairman Wontumi and Akonta) in relation to dealing with the persons permitted to mine.
“There was no functioning management board and executive management board to deal as a company. All acts were done by Chairman Wontumi, the true de facto holder of the mineral right,” the judge said.
Several lawyers took turns to pray for mitigation and urged the court to impose the minimum sentence.
BREAKING: Accra High Court sentences Wontumi to 20 years’ imprisonment in Samraboi case
