The leadership of the Central Tongu Constituency of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is accusing the Central Tongu Constituency Parliamentary Candidate of the ruling NPP of being involved in the missing Galamsey excavators.
According to the Central Tongu NDC in the press statement copied Awake News and signed by its Communications Officer, Mr. Cartious Enyonyoge Kojoga Aziedu, “the NDC has taken note of an Adom TV video footage in which a disputed parliamentary candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Central Tongu Constituency was heard in a telephone conversation with someone believed to be an operative of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Minining (IMCIM) and some media personnel seizing and retrieving some of the infamous “stolen” excavators.”
“In the said video, Mr Raymond Abledu, who admittedly owned an excavator that has been identified by the said operatives as one of the stolen ones, was heard introducing himself as the the PC for Central Tongu NPP, and asked to be allowed to call one Captain Koda, who we believe is the Head of President Akufo-Addo’s security detail.” – the statement added.
Read the full statement:
PRESS RELEASE
MISSING GALAMSEY EXCAVATORS: CENTRAL TONGU NPP PARTLIAMENTARY CANDIDATE (MR RAYMOND ABLEDU) IS INVOLVED – CENTRAL TONGU NDC
The leadership of the Central Tongu Constituency of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken note of an Adom TV video footage in which a disputed parliamentary candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Central Tongu Constituency was heard in a telephone conversation with someone believed to be an operative of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Minining (IMCIM) and some media personnel seizing and retrieving some of the infamous “stolen” excavators.
By the reportage of Adom TV, we heard that “the Committee (referring to the IMCIM), which has been working on retrieving the missing excavators has suffered a lot before getting some of them (excavators), which have been sold or hired to people who are using it to do galamsey”; and that some of these people using the excavators at different hideout sites said the excavators belong to some politicians in Accra. And that the operators at one site said the equipment belong to Emefa and at another site they mentioned Pokua, Asafoatse as the owners……
With the operatives claiming to be identifying the confiscated but stolen excavators by their chassis numbers and dared the “owners” to come to Aviation (where they are supposedly sending the seized excavators) with their documents, one name that struck us out as a beneficiary of this scheme is Mr Raymond Abledu, an acclaimed PC for the NPP in Central Tongu.
In the said video, Mr Raymond Abledu, who admittedly owned an excavator that has been identified by the said operatives as one of the stolen ones, was heard introducing himself as the the PC for Central Tongu NPP, and asked to be allowed to call one Captain Koda, who we believe is the Head of President Akufo-Addo’s security detail.
We in Central Tongu NDC have taken judicial notice of this development and have been in awe. It is trite knowledge that Mr Raymond Abledu, as variously described by his opponents within the NPP in the constituency in many public fora, just burst onto the political scene in Central Tongu with a lot of cash prior to, during, and after the NPP primaries. Many people have doubted the source of his wealth until yesterday’s exposé that he has been allegedly engaging in galamsey.
It is worthy of note that, many youth from Central Tongu, until the renewed and media-led fight against illegal mining which has undeniably destroyed our environment especially our water bodies, have had stints of working in the galamsey industry at various parts of the country but have returned home empty handed. Many had made some earnings and living engaging in this trade, while a lot have died and some were jailed.
It is rather sad to note that, the NPP upon continuing this fight with a nationalistic support from all Ghanaians would appropriate the seized equipments including excavators, ounces of gold, guns and other weapons, some of which would find their way into Central Tongu, and in particular, into the hands of a parliamentary candidate aspirant of the NPP. It is thus sheer wickedness on the part of an aspiring leader to deny the youth of Central Tongu their livelihood on grounds of illegality only for him and his gang of party members to be secret beneficiaries of that same illegal business and portray themselves in the eyes of the unsuspecting citizens to engaging in some genuine business. Moreso, it is insulting to the masses for an aspiring leader to cause this havoc to the livelihood of the very youth you are turning round to lead.
In fact, this cruelty of denying the people of Tove, Bakpa, Adidome, Afego, Mafi-Kumase area, etc. within Central Tongu the machines with which they have had carried out their then “illegal” trade only to be allegedly given to the NPP parliamentary candidate in Central Tongu to engage in the same galamsey business and rake in more money so as to sponsor the NPP going into the 2020 elections, because “party hia sika” is the greatest atrocity anyone can perpetrate on his fellow human being.
It is also getting clearer now that all this excavator-looting enterprise is an NPP party decision to raise enough money to buy votes in the 2020 general elections. We want to alert Ghanaians, especially you the good people of Central Tongu Constituency, that whenever the surrogates of NPP visit your houses with cash and other goodies, know that it is Ghana’s galamsey monies, and that they obtain them not in genuine ways that will in the end harm you and your children. Does this not verily explain why the self-acclaimed Central Tongu NPP PC can get to purchase, or get allocated to, a seized excavator and embark on the very galamsey our people were undertaking for which they were sacked, and in some cases jailed for many years or killed?
With Mr Abledu demanding that he should be allowed to speak to Captain Koda of the President’s security leadership before his excavator was towed to the supposed Aviation depot rather compounds the tacit complicity of the presidency in this Galamsey menace.
We in Central Tongu NDC will like to draw the attention of the good people of Central Tongu to the happenings on the galamsey space because it affects directly the lives of many people in Central Tongu. We also want to draw the attention of the Special Prosecutor to this Adom TV video reportage and seeks his interest in establishing whether there are reasonable grounds of looting, stealing and corruption on the part of the NPP and or Mr Raymond Abledu on the possession of the missing excavators as retorted by Hon Prof Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation.
Long live the fight against galamsey.
Thank you.
….Singed…..
Cartious Enyonyoge Kojoga Aziedu
Communication Officer
Central Tongu NDC