Akonta Mining in Nimiri Forest Reserve: Questions for the Minister

When a crime has been committed and named suspects have been identified, the police are required to arrest the suspects and charge them with the alleged offence(s). The police can grant the suspects police inquiry bail while continuing with their investigations, or arraign them before the court, and the court would determine whether to grant bail to the suspects pending further investigations. Criminal investigations cannot be within the remit of any other Ministry or Agency that is not clothed with the powers of criminal investigations. I have questions for the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources: 1. Assuming the Forestry Commission comes out with a report that is inconclusive because it does not identify any perpetrators, does it mean no crime was committed in the Nimiri Forest Reserve and there are no suspects to be arrested, despite hard evidence that shows Akonta Mining illegally mined there? 2. Isn’t the fact that Akonta Mining had structures erected within the Forest Reserve prima facie evidence they violated the law, because they did not have a permit to enter the Forest Reserve? 3. Why did government destroy structures illegally erected in the Nimiri Forest Reserve by Akonta Mining, structures that are supposed to represent evidence of a crime, at a place that is supposed to be a crime scene? Why didn’t government preserve the structures, to be used as evidence to prosecute Akonta Mining officials, who did not have any permit to even enter that forest, let alone fell trees to make way for their illegal structures and to engage in illegal mining there? 4. Is the government’s action intended to cover up for Akonta Mining? 5. Is the Forestry Commission’s investigations intended to shield and cover up for Akonta Mining? 6. Does government consider the media allies in the fight against galamsey and is the documentary video that shows Akonta Mining engaging in illegal mining within the Forest Reserve not evidence of crime having been committed which must be investigated by the Police and not the Forestry Commission? 6. Does the Ministry have the legal authority to declare that even though a crime was committed against the Republic of Ghana, the case won’t be referred to the Police for criminal investigations because of a report by the Forestry Commission that fails to identify any suspects? 7. Does it not amount to dereliction of duty for the Police to not arrest the suspects after video evidence is published in the media about a crime having been committed in the Nimiri Forest Reserve, with the suspects clearly identified? Do the Ghana police understand their remit in criminal investigations and prosecution, or have they succumbed to political pressure to help shield the directors of Akonta Mining? My understanding is this: A crime was committed against the Republic of Ghana in the Nimiri Forest Reserve. No amount of delays and self-serving procedural gymnastics will erase the public record of the crime and the video evidence of it, and crime has no statute of limitation. Aiding and abetting are also crimes. And any effort to help a criminal escape justice is abetment, in my view as an ordinary Citizen!