Chiefs are noise makers - Obuasi MCE

The Municipal Chief Executive Officer of Obuasi, Mr. Richard Akwasi Ofori Boadi Agyemang, has labeled Chiefs as noise makers in their bid to see sanity and moral uprightness among government officials.

In an obvious show of solidarity with the rejected Chief Executive officer of Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Mr. Kojo Bonsu, by the Kumasi Traditional Council KTC, MCE Ofori Boadi, better known as Zuba noted:

“Nowadays if you are government official and you are not careful in the discharge of your duty in relation to traditional leaders, the next thing they will say is that you are banned from the traditional council.”

He continued that Nananom would continue with the demand on the President to take you away because you are disrespectful.

Mr. Boadi Agyemang made this statement at the inauguration of Committee of Movement of Informal Miners on AGA at Obuasi Anyinam lodge in the presence of Opagyakotwere Bonsra Afriyie II, Adansihene, noted that looking at the traditional set up in the Ashanti region, political appointees are careful, taking into consideration the kind of power traditional leaders wield.

Mr. Ofori Agyemang, not happy about the stance of the chiefs, said he feared making arrests about illegal mining, because big chiefs are involved. Defending the government, Zuba, who lost his bid to be a member of Council of State in 2012, said government is doing all it can to re-structure AGA.

He noted: “I am not endorsing the activities of illegal miners on AGA’s concession, but let’s play facts as they are. In this period where we have had these particular challenges on our hand, all the communications that we have had, including the writ that was served on government of Ghana indicate that between the periods of January 31 and February 2016, some illegal activities have taken place on some parts of AGA’s concession .

If these facts are anything to go by, nobody can create an impression that government is unconcerned about the situation where AGA is not operating because illegal miners have taken over the concessions of AGA.

According to him, there is a deployment of police and military on AGA concessions, to the extent that even last week, a move was made to evict illegal miners from parts of the AGA concessions.

“If government was not committed to providing security for the ECG to do some installations, the MCE would not have led these exercises on the two critical areas embarked upon”, he defended.

Zuba stated that government is committed to provide all investors and investment, including AGA, with the needed security they need to render services to Adansiman and Ghanaians at large. On illegal mining that is being done with the use of excavators, it is giving us a lot of ‘headaches’, he concluded.