The Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has expressed “utter disappointment” in former Minister for Science and Technology, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, for naming him in a damning report on illegal mining popularly known as galamsey.

A 37-page report authored by the former Minister for Science and Technology, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng who was Chairman of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (ICIM) accused the Ofoase-Ayirebi MP of holding a secret meeting to destroy him.

But in a response, Oppong Nkrumah described the allegations as completely false adding that despite being utterly disappointed by the claims he forgives the former minister.

“Over the years, I had nothing but great admiration for Professor Frimpong-Boateng’s public-spirited works and as an inspirational citizen. I feel gravely offended over the false claims he has made and the hurtful conclusions he has sought to exact about me precisely because of the great esteem in which I have held him.

“I trust that in the coming months and years, he will reflect deeply upon his own actions and comments which have led to his challenges. He should kindly leave me out of his personal fights. I am utterly disappointed but I forgive him.”

According to Oppong Nkrumah, he only attended a PRINPAG (Private Newspaper Publishers Association of Ghana) event, jointly organised with the Bank of Ghana on financial reporting and never held any meeting to oust anybody from the government.

“Indeed, the facts are that it was Prof Frimpong-Boateng himself who wrote to the Ghana Police Service in January 2020 reporting the loss of some excavators and calling for an investigation. It was Prof. Frimpong-Boateng himself who in subsequent media interviews mentioned that the number of excavators missing was about 500. Again on or around February 20, 2020, it was Prof Frimpong-Boateng himself who at Parliament House (During interviews on the SONA) engaged in exchanges with the media about the said excavators and promised that they will be recovered”.

“For the record, these are the matters that occasioned the media reports about Prof Frimpong-Boateng and the said excavators. Further, it was Prof. Frimpong-Boateng himself who was later to be seen in a video making comments about the anti-galamsey fight and the release of excavators.

“I Kojo Oppong Nkrumah was not responsible for his initial police report, his subsequent interviews, or any of the claims he made. To be clear, it was Prof Frimpong-Boateng’s own reports, interviews and videos that generated his media challenges around the time. I am thus disappointed that he would, in this document, seek to blame me for the media reports.”