Founder and Leader of the defunct United Renaissance Party (URP), Chuck Kofi Wayo, has stated that the inability of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to effectively tackle the ‘galamsey’ menace in the country makes it a “useless” organization.

According to him, the organization with the investigative jurisdiction over a wide range of criminal offenses in Ghana, is poorly trained and equipped, which, therefore, makes it inoperationable in the face of the illegal mining.

“… I see that the BNI is useless, they are badly trained. They don’t know what to do for the country,” he fumed.

Equating the duties of the BNI to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in the United States of America, Kofi Wayo asserted that the BNI is tasked by law to protect the nation, its citizens and to also uphold the Constitution by initiating actions that are tailored to defend the citizens of Ghana, but the reverse is the case.

He was commenting on the work of the Inter-Ministerial Task force charged with the duty of checking the activities of illegal mining and the infiltration of foreigners into the small-scale mining sector.

Speaking to Adom FM in an interview, Kofi Wayo, who claims to have seen at first hand the work of the Task force in seeking to curb the destruction associated with illegal mining, maintains it should have been undertaken by the BNI.

Touching on the accusation of brutalities and extortion leveled against the taskforce team by the Association of Small Scale Miners, the maverick politician acknowledged that there might be excesses, adding that some individuals are taking advantage of the situation to take monies from miners illegally.

In spite of these excesses, the URP leader said, “the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Insusah Fuseini is my Minister of the month because my investigations revealed that he (the Minister) refused a “$4 million dollar” bribe from a group of small scale miners”.