You Sold Yourself To The Media And Police, Not Me - Professor Oppong-Nkrumah To Prof. Frimpong-Boateng

Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the former minister of environment, science, technology, and innovation, has accused the current minister of information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, of plotting to bring him down in his fight against illegal small-scale mining, also known as galamsey.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng stated in a report on illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) in Ghana that Oppong Nkrumah devised a plan to sabotage him due to his struggle against the threat.

"...in truth, it was Prof. Boateng who contacted the Ghana Police Service in January 2020 to report the loss of some excavators and request an investigation. Prof. Boateng himself mentioned in subsequent media interviews that approximately 500 excavators were AWOL.

"Again, on or around February 20, 2020, it was Prof. Boateng who engaged in discussions with the media at Parliament House (during interviews on the SONA) regarding the aforementioned excavators and promised that they would be recovered.

"For the record, these are the circumstances that prompted media coverage of Professor Boateng and the aforementioned excavators. In addition, it was Prof. Boateng himself who was subsequently captured on video discussing the anti-galamsey campaign and the release of excavators."

He added, "I Kojo Oppong Nkrumah was not accountable for his initial police report, subsequent interviews, or any of his assertions. To clarify, it was Prof. Boateng's own reports, interviews, and videos at the time that prompted media challenges. "I am therefore disappointed that he would seek to blame me for the media reports in this document," the statement said.

Prof. Frimpong Boateng's galamsey report regarding Oppong Nkrumah.

In a report to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng of the disbanded Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) accused Information Minister Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah of plotting against him.

The 37-page report submitted by the former Minister for Environment, Science, and Technology on March 19, 2021 was intended to inform the president about the Committee's efforts to combat illicit mining and the "way forward."

According to Mr. Frimpong Boateng, one of the prominent figures implicated in the report is the Minister for Information, who allegedly gathered and incited a group of journalists to assault him.

"On Saturday, February 8th, 2020. Mr. Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah, the Minister for Information, gathered journalists from both NDC- and NPP-affiliated media outlets at the Forest Hotel in Dodowa to deliberate a strategy to bring me Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng down. While they were there, a journalist from the group called a journalist acquaintance of mine and informed him of the plot that was being hatched. He also told my acquaintance to keep an eye out for newspaper headlines in the days following the meeting, as stated in the report.

"On Monday, 10′ February 2020, the INFORMER Newspaper, whose Editor was present, had the banner headline reproduced below on its front page: "As if that wasn't enough, on Thursday, 13th February 2020 at the 71st Cabinet Meeting, Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah in his regular report to Cabinet discussed news that was trending that week.

"The first thing he mentioned was Frimpong-Boateng and the 500 missing excavators," stated the former minister.

Prof. Frimpong Boateng alleged in his report that Committee members, including Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, sabotaged his work.

"It must be noted that Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah, as Minister for Information, was a member of the IMCIM. He never called me to find out what I knew about the'missing excavators,' but he deemed it worthwhile to magnify the falsehood in the press and also present it to Cabinet for reasons best known to him and his accomplices. If Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah and those like him have presidential ambitions, they should pursue it based on merit and not attempt to destroy a hardworking patriot, whose only ambition is to work towards achieving a Ghana Beyond Aid, as depicted in the report.

"After the 2020 general election, Oppong-Nkrumah repeatedly blamed the Government's handling of the 'banking crisis and the galamsey conflict' for the NPP's underwhelming performance. "The reality is that those who did not vote for the NPP in the galamsey areas were not the miners, but rather hundreds of thousands of people living in communities bordering forest reserves who were harassed by mining companies such as Heritage Imperial," he added.