The embattled secretary to the defunct Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM), Charles Bissue, has downplayed the claims by the former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Prof Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, that he was the ‘last man standing’ when it comes to the fight against Galamsey.

According to him, this claim by the former Chairman of IMCIM was not entirely true.

He stressed that Prof Frimpong Boateng cannot assert that he was alone in the fight against corruption.

He said more people were forthright in the fight against illegal mining during the time of the committee.

He noted that the committee was made up of 10 ministers who were all committed to the fight against illegal mining.

"The likes of Dan Botwe, the Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Madam Cecilia Dappah, Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources and Hajia Alima Mahama, Ghana's ambassador to the United States of America," he named.

"These people were equally committed to the fight so Prof Frimpong Boateng cannot assert that he was the last man standing on the committee."

He expressed his displeasure with the modus of the former Chairman of the committee explaining he does not understand why the former minister is speaking now.

''I just cannot fathom why my boss is speaking now on the work we did in the fight against Galamsey,'' he said. 

"I know a lot as the secretary to the committee but I have been guided by the tenets of the New Patriotic Party to always promote and defend the party," he told Accra-based Citi FM while reacting to the 37-page report prepared by Prof Frimpong Boateng to the Chief of Staff on Thursday, April 20, 2023.  

"The man should have spoken when the issue became the talk of the town and at the time of my encounter with the Anas debacle," he noted. 

 Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng in a report gave specific details to back his earlier allegation that there are people at the Jubilee House, as well as members of the governing New Patriotic party - from the lowest to the topmost officials - who are actively engaged in illegal mining (galamsey).

 In the 37-page report, the former minister who said the kingpins orchestrated his ouster from the Akufo-Addo administration because he was fighting their galamsey activities, said the presidential galamseyers as well as the party people involved in the illicit enterprise, use the Chinese as fronts.

“Throughout our struggle with illegalities in the small-scale mining sector, what baffled me was the total disregard of the president’s commitment to protect the environment," he wrote.

"I can state without any equivocation that many party officials from the national to the unit committee level had their friends, PAs, agents, relatives, financiers or relatives engaged in illegal mining", he added.

“Most of them engaged Chinese working for them," he noted.

"I am not referring to party people who had their legitimate concession and were mining sustainably as they were instructed to do.

There are appointees in the Jubilee House that are doing or supporting illegal mining or interfering with the fight against the menace," he clarified.

He cited an NPP MP in the Ashanti Region who used his position as a member of the Minerals Commission to acquire several dozen large-scale concessions in his district, ostensibly for community mining purposes only to sell them to private individuals, including party members, at GHS200,000 apiece.

“This infuriated the party in the constituency so during the 2020 primaries to select a candidate the electorate voted against the sitting MP, who was more resourced than other candidates.

Although there were allegations that he “camped” delegates and attempted to bribe them, he lost to a lesser known individual who did not have any financial muscle," he narrated.

He also said some leading NPP officials served as lawyers for some galamseyers.

The then-Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) also said he put together the report dated 19 March 2021, following an order from the Chief of Staff.

He also accused a reporter of engaging in unlawful excavator sales and money laundering at the behest of some government appointees.