A leading member of the governing New Patriotic Party, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko has taken a swipe at former Minister for Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng following allegations the latter made against him in a March 2021 report.
Mr. Otchere-Darko in an exclusive interview with Citi New’s Vivian Kai Lokko scolded the former minister for his galamsey report in which Mr. Otchere-Darko was accused of interfering in the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM).
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng was really unhappy that Mr. Ochere-Darko, a leading NPP figure, was legally representing a company accused of engaging in galamsey during the peak of the fight against illegal mining.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng in the report disclosed that he reported the behavior of Mr. Otchere-Darko to President Akufo-Addo who “promised to deal with it.”
Mr. Otchere-Darko questioned why the former minister failed to deal with him if he was certain that he had done something illegitimate.
“It tells you how weak the [former] Minister’s understanding of his position is. If what I did was illegitimate, why didn’t he take the right action? He said he had reported me to the president, as if he is a teacher and the president is a headmaster, and I am a prefect.”
Mr. Otchere-Darko added that he hasn’t seen anything in the report suggesting he attempted gagging the former minister and demanded that he comes out to categorically point out where he went wrong and appeared to have interfered with the Committee’s work.
“Let the [former] Minister come and say that when I called him, I instructed him to do what was not right, let him come and say that when I called him, I was pushing an illegitimate point, let him come and say so. I based my intervention on the legality of what my clients were doing and what I saw to be an illegitimate action of the state against a company that the same state had issued permits and licenses to operate its business.”
“If he has his own issues, let him deal with them, but he should not misinterpret a legitimate action of a lawyer on behalf of a client who had a legitimate case as a matter of interference,” Mr. Otchere Darko added.