The USA branch of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has disowned Mr Solomon Owusu, who describes himself as the immediate past Deputy Secretary of the party’s California branch.

Mr Owusu recently told Kwabena Bobie Ansah on Accra100.5FM’s The Citizens Show on Tuesday, 10 December 2019 that in spite of the ban on illicit small-scale mining, it still persists with some government officials and their relatives neck-deep in it, adding that President Nana Akufo-Addo “lied in South Africa in February this year when he said the water bodies were clean now due to the fight against galamsey”.

The outspoken NPP man said: “The fight against galamsey has achieved nothing because it is ongoing with several key personalities in government involved in it.”

“Go to Tarkwa”, he challenged, “And see how the water bodies are still being destroyed by galamsayers; go to New Abirem in the Eastern Region and see how these people are destroying the environment. Yet, the President told the whole world the water bodies are clean”.

“The Inter-Ministerial Committee Against Illegal Mining reports to the President but as we speak, galamsey is still destroying our water bodies.”

“This is a President who doesn’t deserve another four years in office,” he stated.

In a rejoinder, however, NPP-USA said neither does it “have a chapter named NPP-California since 2018” nor has “any of her chapters in the California area, Los Angeles and San Francisco, or any member in the two sister chapters, sanctioned or authored any article with such misleading caption to sell its story”.

The statement continued: “The author of this vile, mischievous and intentionally-misleading article, was once a member in the California now Los Angeles chapter from 2014 till 2016 while he was a resident of Arizona, USA.

“Although a new entrant, the chapter appointed him deputy secretary to encourage his participation but he was hardly around to perform his role as appointed. He quit being a member of the then-California chapter and also as deputy secretary in January 2016 due to his continued absence when he moved from the Arizona area to school in Colorado.

“He did not join the chapter where he relocated to, or any other chapter of NPP-USA. He was not a member in good standing as of July 2016 and our records reflect that he was only an active member of this branch for only one year. He has since 2018 officially resigned from the chapter and the NPP-USA branch even though he was not a member in active and good standing status”, the statement added.

It said Mr Owusu “cannot, therefore, hold himself as a member of NPP-USA or any of her chapters or seek to grant interviews or write articles headlined in a mischievous fashion that associates him or the article to NPP-USA or any of her chapters”.

“The NPP-USA branch, therefore, dissociates herself and condemns such vile and intentionally misleading headliners.

“NPP-USA is not privy to the origins and basis of the content of the article. NPP-USA did not contribute in any way to the article and does not have any affiliation or relationship with the author.

“We wish to categorically state that the article has a sole author and the author has nothing to do with NPP-USA or any of her chapters for the caption to attribute it to a chapter in California. In good faith, we believe this attribution is a mistake or a palpable falsehood to seek attention for its malicious content.

“For these reasons, we demand all media outfits that have run the story to pull it down immediately or alternatively remove the attribution to NPP-USA in the caption and apologise to NPP-USA and to treat any future publication from the author associating NPP-USA or any of her chapters with the contempt it deserves”, the NPP-USA Communication Directorate said.