Member of Parliament for the Bortianor-Ngleshie Amanfro Constituency, Honorable Sylvester Tetteh, has called the promise of the NDC to prosecute officials of the ruling government on Professor Frimpong Boateng’s galamsey report if it takes over power in 2025, empty threats.
According to the Member of Parliament, the NDC is just using the threat to acquire political power.
He further said that the comments on the galamsey report outside the confines of the court and investigative agencies will remain just speculations.
“These are all empty threats because the rule of the game is evidence, incontrovertible evidence!… So one would have thought that they would have learned from their empty threats to get political power.
“They are doing all this in expectation of getting political power and people who are doing this and sounding warnings to people, a day is coming. We have seen their likes in their party issuing such empty threats and they come into office and it is a different thing altogether. Ghanaians won’t be hoodwinked into believing these elements who don’t even have principles .”
Hon. Sylvester Tetteh
He reminisced about events leading up to the 2008 elections to reinforce his position.
“Remember the NDC saying that the gold stock of this country had been deleted and shared among members of NPP stalwart, that when they come into the office, they are going to arrest and prosecute. They went to the extent that they allocated monies to leading NPP members in NPP in the run-up to the 2008 elections and criminalized them in this country. What happened? Remember the sale of Ghana Telecom to Vodafone? Now, the former Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, what didn’t they say? Then when they got the power…
“They said crime had no status bar, when they come they are going to investigate. These are all empty threats because the rule of the game is evidence, incontrovertible evidence! You remember when NDC came, they hurled a lot of people before the court. They were dismissed based on lack of evidence.’
Hon. Sylvester Tetteh
Hence, Mr. Tetteh was insistent that the lack of evidence of the accusations of the NDC would render their cases barratrous, even if they made it to the courts.
He wondered why the NDC had not presented its evidence on the case to any of the investigative bodies for further inquiries into their allegations.
“The NDC that are speaking today, if they had any further evidence, to back the claims they are making, nothing stops them from going to the court. When they heard the news and came to notice the fact that the matter had been referred to court to the side, for further investigations they could have made their way to the side and offered these pieces of evidence to the CID to make their word complete.”
Hon. Sylvester Tetteh
Mr Tetteh underscored that the Attorney-General’s advice notably asked for further investigations on the three people the NDC continues to accuse. He also mentioned that the investigations were crippled in part because Professor Frimpong refused to collaborate with the CID on the case.
Government Committed To Protecting The Environment
However, the Member of Parliament insisted that the war on galamsey was a worthy one. He emphasized the government’s commitment to the fight regardless of many accusations of the government’s culpability in the menace.
he said that the effect of galamsey on water bodies, on the environment, and health is huge. According to the legislator, government’s commitment was evident in how the President had put his re-election on the line to say that if that will cost him his reelection bid, he was prepared to sacrifice his office to fight galamsey.
Hon. Sylvester Tetteh
Honorable Sylvester Tetteh therefore assured Ghanaians of the government’s commitment to fighting illegal mining to save the environment.
His comments were in response to a promise by the NDC at its Moments of Truths Series, pledging to prosecute officials of the NPP who were involved in galamsey as reported by Professor Frimpong Boateng.
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