General News of Thursday, 13 October 2022
Source: www.ghanaweb.live
2022-10-13Freddie Blay should resign as board chair of GNPC immediately - Yaa Jantuah
Nana Yaa Jantuah (left), Freddie Blay (right)
The General Secretary of Convention Peoples Party (CPP), Nana Yaa Jantuah, has called for the immediate resignation of the past Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Freddie Blay, as the board chairman of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
She explained that Blay had to resign because his law firm is representing the accomplices
Read full articleof the alleged illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) kingpin, Aisha Huang, who the government, which he is part of, is prosecuting.
Speaking in a TV3 interview monitored by GhanaWeb, Jantuah berated Freddie Blay for defending Aisha Huang's accomplices.
She reiterated that the action of the former NPP chairman is ethically wrong and amounts to a clear case of conflict of interest.
“This is a man who is part of the governance of an organization in the NPP government and his law firm is defending galamsey. What do they seek to achieve? Are they just playing?
“I thought he had even left GNPC, but he is still there. Being the board chair is not of GNPC, it means you are part of the government. It is the people who are in government who become board chairmen because it is assumed and believed that they believe in the agenda of the government in power. That is why they put them there, to direct governance as board chairman.
“You are in government and your firm is defending a government that the president of this country has put his job on the line to stop. I think he should resign as board chair of GNPC. I don’t know why he is still there because it is a conflict of interest. You can eat your cake and have it,” she said.
She indicated that she is very disheartened that a member of the government is supporting something that is killing Ghanaians and destroying the country’s lands and water bodies.
Freddie Blay, who is the immediate past chairman of the NPP, has come under heavy criticism after it emerged that he is the main lawyer for Huang's four co-accused in a case related to galamsey.
Lucy Ekeleba Blay, a private legal practitioner, in court on Tuesday (October 11), said that she was holding brief for Freddie Blay in the case of the four accomplices in the persons of Gao Jin Cheng, Lu Qi Jun, Haibin Go and Zhang Zhipeng.
You can also watch this episode of People & Places on GhanaWeb TV:
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