Communications Director for the Governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, has denied ever backing calls from CSOs to declare a state of emergency in communities where illegal mining was taking place under the erstwhile Akufo-Addo administration.
According to him, he vehemently protested the calls but rather declared a state of emergency on the removal of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his appointees who were supervising the menace to the detriment of the Ghanaian people.
Sammy Gyamfi was speaking on Accra-based Asempa FM when he made this known in a post.
He acknowledged that although some elements within the political party at the time supported the call, the corporate entity did not support it and therefore never issued any statement to the effect.
“Go and check me. I spoke on it even on Good Morning Ghana. I said I disagreed with them that the problem was not to declare any state of emergency. What we had to do was to declare a state of emergency on Akufo-Addo and his gang and vote them out because they were the ones supervising the illegal mining menace.
At the time you saw appointees, regional ministers, mayors directly involved and you say Ghanaians who have bought machines to mine should be affected. The NDC as a corporate entity never supported the calls for state of emergency. Some individuals in the NDC supported it but show me one statement from the NDC that supported it,” he said.
He added further, “It was in 2017/18 when the NPP banned mining that we exported more gold, and such a feat has not been able to be attained since then. The ban was a facade and so I didn’t support calls for state of emergency because they would have hid behind it and taken peoples concessions,” he said.
