South Dayi MP, Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor has petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to investigate violations of fundamental human rights, alleged corrupt practices, issues of conflict of interest and abuse of public office by certain public officials and others cited in the report of the Work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM).
The petition filed by lawyers for the MP also wants CHRAJ to investigate allegations of corruption, conflict of interest and abuse of office made by Charles Bissue, the former secretary of the IMCIM, against Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the former chairman of the IMCIM, in respect of matters involving some 500 excavators that supposedly went missing around February 2020.
The petition dated April 25, 2023, says the report of the IMCIM dated 19th March 2021 and confirmed to have been authored by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, cites various public officials and other individuals for corruption, conflict of interest and abuse of public office, including for instance, “…the following findings of corruption, conflict of interest and abuse of public office were made:
“On Monday 11th January 2021, the task force entered a concession at a location called Bepotenten we had been monitoring for some times. Residents in the area complained about harassment by Chinese miners. The damage to the forest reserve was unimaginable.
Big economic trees had been felled and dumped into muddy water bodies to rot. Huge pits were scattered over dozens of acres land. Near cocoa farms had been destroyed. Seven excavators were seized, As usual so[1]called big men started calling. First was Mr. Charles Owusu, who claimed ownership of the concession and of the excavators. This individual happens to be the Operations Manager of the Forestry Commission and there he was mining in a forest reserve without any permit and destroying forests, farm lands, water bodies and indeed the entire biodiversity.”
