Majority Chief Whip Rockson-Nelson Dafeamekpor has insisted that the landmark illegal mining conviction of New Patriotic Party (NPP) regional powerbroker Bernard Antwi Boasiako – widely known as Chairman Wontumi – was initiated under his own party’s government, not engineered by the current National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration.
Speaking on current affairs programme The Point of View on Monday 20 July, the South Dayi MP moved to counter mounting accusations from the NPP that Wontumi’s 20-year jail term is the result of political persecution.
“The record must reflect that it was not the NDC that went after him. It was his own government that established those facts before we came to inherit it,” the lawyer said.
His intervention comes after the Accra High Court convicted Wontumi and Akonta Mining Limited on illegal mining-related offences linked to operations at the Samreboi concession in Ghana’s Western Region.
The court handed Wontumi a 20-year prison sentence, to run concurrently on the various counts, while Akonta Mining was fined 15,000 penalty units on each count.
NPP cries ‘political prisoner’
The conviction has triggered a fierce political row, with the NPP leadership alleging selective justice by the current government.
NPP General Secretary Justin Kodua Frimpong said the party regarded the ruling as unjust and politically motivated, casting Wontumi as a victim of persecution.
The party has gone as far as branding the Ashanti Regional Chairman a “political prisoner”, arguing that the punishment is disproportionate and targeted at weakening the NPP base in its stronghold.
However, Dafeamekpor rejected that characterisation, arguing that the legal questions surrounding Akonta Mining originated under the previous NPP administration and were, in fact, raised by state institutions then in office.
Dispute over Akonta Mining’s licence
Dafeamekpor recalled that while the NDC was in opposition, it repeatedly pressed for probes into Akonta Mining’s activities after then Lands Minister Samuel Abu Jinapor and the Minerals Commission publicly stated that the company did not have a licence for the Samreboi concession.
Despite those public statements, he said, the NPP government maintained on the floor of Parliament that Akonta Mining was not involved in illegal mining – a position the then Minority caucus vigorously disputed.
“If the government was really interested in fighting galamsey, Akonta Mining, owned by Chairman Wontumi, ought to have been one of its primary subjects of prosecution,” Dafeamekpor argued.
His comments underline a long-running controversy over illegal small-scale mining, known locally as galamsey, which successive governments have pledged to clamp down on amid concerns over environmental destruction and political interference.
‘Evidence does not always have to be direct’
Responding to claims from some NPP figures and sympathisers that the case against Wontumi was weak and lacked direct proof, Dafeamekpor defended the court process and the legal standards applied.
“In criminal law jurisprudence, evidence does not always have to be direct. What is important is relevant evidence,” he said.
He added that it is for the court to weigh the relevance and strength of the evidence before arriving at a verdict, stressing that the judge had followed that duty in this case.
Appeal still possible
Despite backing the legitimacy of the conviction, Dafeamekpor noted that Wontumi still has avenues to challenge the outcome.
“He has a right to an appeal, and he has very good, bright lawyers. So, it is not the end,” he said.
The case has rattled the NPP grassroots, particularly in the Ashanti Region, where Wontumi has been a central organiser and financier. Party insiders have warned that the sentence has “devastated” parts of the base and could have implications for party morale ahead of future elections.
With the NPP framing the conviction as a political vendetta and the Majority Chief Whip insisting it was the product of a process begun under the party’s own rule, the Wontumi case has become a fresh flashpoint in Ghana’s fraught battle over illegal mining and its entanglement with partisan politics.
