The Director of International Affairs for the opposition National Democratic Congress, Alex Segbefia has attributed the sentences given to Aisha Huang, an illegal mining kingpin to inadequate charges that were pressed against her by the Office of the Attorney General.
Reacting to the four-year imprisonment of the Chinese national by an Accra High Court on December 4 2023 for engaging in the activities of illegal mining in the country, the former Minister of Health indicated that the convict committed more offences which warranted more charges than what the Office of the Attorney General charged her with.
According to him the number of years given to the Chinese national by the judge was based on the number of charges that she was charged with hence, the judge cannot be blamed for what many describe as a lenient punishment.
“There are good aspects of it and there are also some question marks. I stand to be corrupted, the A-G offices may have done best with what they have but she seems to have committed a whole raft of offences; one is to do with illegal mining and the other to return to the country after she was expelled extra. There could have been a raft of charges which could have led to higher sentences. If you charge somebody with sentences that are limited to a certain sentence regime then it means that the judge cannot sentence you higher than what the charges are”.
Alex Segbefia
Mr Alex Segbefia further indicated that it was incumbent on the Office of the Attorney General to have picked charges that depict the nature of the offences that were committed by the Chinese national and to ultimately prosecute her at a higher level.
He strongly stressed that the sentences that were given to the Chinese national for engaging in illegal mining would have been higher if the Office of the Attorney General had put forward additional charges against her during the prosecution of the matter at the court.
“There must have been other charges that could have been used to increase the charges and they should have included those charges and charged her with it because she is the benchmark of how the government is going to be perceived in its fight against illegal mining. This is a lady who is involved in illegal mining and the same person who later breached government deportation sanctions against her by returning to the country to continue with illegal mining”.
Alex Segbefia
Government Criticized Over Its Lack Of Commitment To Fight ‘Galamsey’
Moreover, the former Health Minister, Mr Alex Segbefia lamented over the lack of commitment on the part of the government to fight against the menace of illegal mining in the country.
According to him, the government has failed to demonstrate an effort to penalize persons involved in the activities of illegal mining in the country particularly high-ranking government officials and foreign nationals.
He accused President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party administration of failing to deliver on its promises to the citizens of Ghana and rather impoverish Ghanaians with hardship through mismanagement of every sector of the country’s economy over the past seven years it has been in power.
“The NPP is noted for saying all the right things but doing all the wrong things. So their rhetoric is always in the right direction; however, the actions are always the opposite. So as far as I’m concerned the NPP cannot ever be trusted on what they say. So the fight against galamsey, the reality sits in the report of Professor Frimpong Boateng but it has been rubbished like many other reports including the Ayawaso Wougon Commission of Enquiry report and the Ejura shooting report. In all those instances no one has been prosecuted. The talk is too much but the actions are too little”.
Alex Segbefia
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