Former environment minister, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng wrote in a report submitted to the presidency that illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) had ravaged parts of the Eastern Region affecting the president's private residence in his village.

The 2021 report by the then chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) listed a number of top government and party officials complicit in galamsey activities or those alleged to have frustrated the work of the committee.

The report alleged that a local youth organizer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) had engaged in galamsey near the president's house till it affected a garden in the residence.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng added that he dispatched a team that verified the incident and without telling the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo went ahead to reclaim the land and vegetate the area.

However, audio-visuals of the said residence show no sign of the said destruction.

The vegetation and structures of the residence appear not to have been tampered with.

Speaking to the media at the residence, the chief of Kyebi, Osabarima Marfo Kwabre, said that the claims made by Prof Frimpong-Boateng are mere fabrications.

He said that the trees and environment of the Akufo-Addo’s house speak for itself. He, therefore, the former science and technology minister to retract and apologise for the claims he made, asaaseradio.com reports.

“I wonder why people with high positions can bring themselves so low to that extent of telling lies… I don’t see the point because there is a house here with trees in it up to this point, and I’m not sure how we were able to dig the gold, remove the trees, and replace them,

“So, the trees speak for us, and I don’t believe we need to. The trees and the environment speak for themselves,” the chief is quoted to have said.

View audio-visuals from Akufo-Addo’s residence in Kyebi below:









IB/