A former Member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Solomon Owusu, is alleging some members of the party are jubilating over the sentencing of their Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, also known as Wontumi.
Owusu, who says many of the NPP faithful are his friends, indicates some of the party members were excited after Wontumi’s 20-year jail term was pronounced on Monday, July 20, 2026.
Speaking on the BigIssue segment on the NewDay morning show on TV3 Wednesday, July 22, 2026, Owusu, who is now the Director of Communications for the United Party (UP), chastised the party leadership for organising press conferences to criticise the court’s verdict without reading the entire judgement.
“A party like the New Patriotic Party, three hours after judgement that they have not seen the entire judgement started making press conference,” he noted, alleging some of the people leading those pressers are excited Wontumi has been jailed.
“A lot of them are happy in there. I know them. They’re our friends. They will not come out to come and say,” Owusu alleged.
When host, Roland Walker, suggested that his allegations were spurious, Owusu defended himself by referencing Wontumi’s assertions the last time he went out –Asante Akyem Central– to campaign in his bid to become the National Chairman of the NPP, where he accused some party leadership of engineering his downfall.
“He was accusing the General Secretary of being envious of him. And that the General Secretary was plotting with Butey, together with Afoko, to make sure he does not win,” he alleged.
Wontumi was found guilty, got convicted and sentenced by the Accra High Court 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.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the NPP has announced its intentions to appeal the ruling, describing their Chairman’s sentencing as politically motivated.
