Seth Mantey, the journalist mentioned as allegedly authoring a statement in a galamsey report going viral has asked those attributing the contents to him to go to the police to furnish themselves with what he said to the cops.
Sammy Gyamfi, the National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the party’s ‘Moment of Truth’ series Monday, October, 16, 2023, mentioned that Seth Mantey, who reports for Accra-based Peace FM has authored a statement to the police which is enough evidence to prosecute some persons mentioned in the said galamsey report.
A 21-page report presented to the Chief of Staff, Akosua Osei Frema Opare, by the Chairman of the dissolved Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, mentioned that, one Seth Mantey had testified to receiving monies from persons involved in galamsey in his account, to members of the Committee to release their seized excavators to them.
The said report was used by the NDC in their Moment of Truth Monday to advance their course that an advice given by the Attorney General to the government that the report lacked the requisite evidence to prosecute persons implicated in the report was a mere cover-up by the A-G.
“The advice of the Attorney-General recounts how Prof. Frimpong Boateng furnished the Police with the statement of one Seth Mantey, a journalist previously with Accra-based Peace FM in which the journalist formally confessed that he was the errand boy of one John Ofori Atta, Central Regional Security Coordinator, and a member of GalamStop, and that, in the course of the operation of GalamStop, he became a contact boy for miners whose excavators were seized by the task force.
“In his statement to the Police, Seth Mantey confessed that miners were directed by John Ofori Atta to pay between GHS50,000 and GHS55,000 into his bank account at NIB to influence the anti-galamsey taskforce to release the seized excavators. Seth Mantey further stated that all the monies paid into his bank account were withdrawn by him and paid to the Central Regional Security Coordinator, John Ofori Atta who gave Ekow Ewusi his share.
“According to Seth Mantey, about twenty-seven (27) of the seized excavators were released to these miners,” Sammy Gyamfi said in his statement Monday.
But the journalist says the attributions are untrue and has asked Sammy Gyamfi to go to the police if he wants what is contained in his statement.
“I want Sammy Gyamfi to know that I have not authored any such statement to neither the police nor the Special Prosecutor. He is a lawyer and if he wants the statement that I wrote, he should go to the Police and ask because I know nothing about this statement. Professor Frimpong-Boateng is not a police officer and I have not written anything to him,” he said in a press statement Tuesday, October 17, 2023.
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