A member of the Legal and Communication teams of the opposition National Democratic Congress(NDC), Abraham Amaliba, has alleged that the National Women’s Organizer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Kate Gyamfua’s excavators were burned because she lambasted the Road and Highways Minister Kwasi Amoako-Atta for his arbitrary fixing of roads in his constituency.

This, Mr. Amaliba believes warranted the torching of her excavators by the Task Force but not that the President is indiscriminate in his fight against galamsey in the country.

He posited that if it is really about fighting the canker without discrimination, then he must do the needful to arrest and prosecute the ‘kingpins’ behind the act.

He made this allegation in an interview with Berla Mundi on the New Day show on TV3, Friday, May 28.

Mr. Amaliba was speaking on the back of the crusade against illegal small-scale mining(galamsey) by the ‘Operation Halt’ Task Force entering the fourth phase. And also his dissent with what he describes as the arbitrary burning of excavators by the Task Force which is not sanctioned by parliament or the Minerals and Mining Act to guarantee its legitimacy in law.

He said “you see, Kate Gyamfua has a problem internally within her own party when she criticized the Road Minister for developing roads in the Akyem area. Kate Gyamfua was out there criticizing the Road Minister for concentrating on roads in the Akyem Abuakwa area and neglecting even some of the Akyem areas. She is also from the Eastern Region and so Kate Gyamfua’s comments did not go down well with the so-called “Akyem Mafia” in the NPP.”

“You can do some deductions, that’s why the small scale miners have also indicated an area where party bigwigs are operating there but they have cordoned that place off without going into that. So the selective justice is also the same principle that can be used to describe Kate Gyamfua.

Kate Gyamfua has been targeted as a member of the party because she openly criticized the Road Minister. I am saying that is the logical deduction because why is it that other bigwigs who are in that forest reserve have not had their equipments burned?” Mr. Amaliba quizzed.

Quizzed about naming some of the so-called bigwigs to make his point, he responded by saying “ask the small scale miners, they have given you the name of the forest. We are discussing what the small scale miners have said and they are saying that there are bigwigs mining in the Odaho Forest Reserve.

So why is it that that forest was not entered into and the equipment there burnt but Kate Gyamfua’s own has been burned? It’s because Kate Gyamfua openly criticized the Road Minister who concentrated on developing roads in the Akyem area to the neglect of her own constituency.

“That is the logical deduction, why is she suffering alone? She is suffering alone because she made a public statement that did not sit well with the government and that is why that is happening. So yes, small scale miners have a concern, they think that there is some selective justice, they think that there are party bigwigs who are in the Odaho Forest Reserve but their equipment not being tampered with.

But come to think of it, when they say a forest reserve, the name itself, forest reserve, that means you are not even supposed to go there to catch a butterfly. Because it has been reserved, you can’t hunt in there, you can’t cut a tree there, that is the import of a forest reserve”.

Madam Kate Gyamfua is reported to have lambasted Amoako-Atta for what she thought was his arbitrary manner of fixing roads in the Eastern Region.

“Tell Amoako-Atta that he was not made Road and Highway Minister because of roads in his constituency. Look at the number of world-class roads Amoako-Atta is constructing in his hometown-Kwabeng and other communities. What have we done wrong in Akwatia and its environs to deserve these bad roads?

If you are made a Road Minister, you must also look at other places to construct roads” multiple media reports quoted her to have said on an Oda based Radio station.