An Open Letter To The Hon. Dr. Omane Boamah - Ghana's Minister For Communications

Dear Hon. Omane Boamah,

Years ago, when you first joined the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government of President Mills, as deputy minister for environment and science, I came to see you, to try and get the illegal gold mining and illegal logging then being carried out at Akyem Juaso, halted, by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
 
As you are no doubt aware, President Mahama has been appointed co-chairperson (together with Norway's Prime Minister Ms. Erna Solberg) of the sixteen eminent persons from around the globe, designated as United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Advocates, by the UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.

The rogue officials in Ghana who collude with the wealthy criminal syndicates behind most of the illegal logging and illegal gold mining around the country - by making available to them bogus documentation to enable them get away with their crimes - are directly undermining President Mahama's position as co-chairperson of the UN SDGs Advocates.

As we speak, investigations are underway at Akyem Juaso,  following petitions made by me recently, to the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department, at the Police Headquarters, the head of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources.

Sir, take it from me that the only way to ascertain what is actually going on in that section of the Atewa Range upland evergreen rainforest - apart from using drones and looking at  Urthecast satellite images of the area - is for the investigators to use Ghana Air Force helicopters to fly over the area, for a bird's eye view of the egregious destruction, which is now going on in what is part of a designated Globally Significant Biodiversity Area (GSBA), which is habitat to many flora and fauna, some found nowhere else in the world.

To save the honour of President Mahama, as co-chairperson of the UN SDGs Advocates, please ensure that helicopters from the Ghana Air Force are made available to the said investigators (and if the Okyehene can be invited to join them perhaps  he will finally come to see why Akyem Abuakwa is indeed the galamsey capital of Ghana) - as none of the villagers, including our own caretakers, will willingly volunteer to take those investigators to the parts of that very important upland evergreen rainforest, where scores of trees have been felled, and continue to be felled.

Naturally, they are all scared of the retribution that will follow when the investigators depart. Yet, it has been an open secret for years that truckloads of bush-cut chainsaw lumber depart from the area on a regular basis (with the recent added sophistication of abusing the system of  covering Forestry Division conveyance documents) to be sold at Muus, near Taifa junction in Accra.

If you are unable to arrange for the Ghana Air Force to take the investigators in their helicopters to fly over that section of the Atewa Range upland evergreen rainforest, to see for themselves what is actually going on - as opposed to the false reports from the selfsame Forestry Commission's Forestry Division's rogue officials who are colluding with the illegal loggers and the illegal gold miners - I shall be forced to ask the global campaign group, Avaaz.org, to organise a global email petition addressed to President Mahama, Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the UN Secretary General, to demand action from your regime, to bring that abomination to an end immediately.

Honourable Minister, I am now an old man who is weak and literally dying - and want to see an end to this outrage before I go to meet my Maker.

Finally - no doubt  to teach me a lesson for my persistence over the years - upon hearing that I have been quite ill, illegal gold miners have invaded part of the P. E. Thompson Estate's 14-square mile freehold upland evergreen rainforest property at Akyem Juaso.

I am also aware that some of the rogues in your administration, who hate my guts for regularly criticising your hard-of-hearing regime, are doing everything possible to stop investigations into the crime against humanity, which the illegal logging and illegal gold mining in a biodiversity hotspot of global importance, represents.

How can this happen in a nation in which the rule of law is said to prevail, I ask? What serious green impact-investor will come to a country in which such monstrous things are allowed to happen - even in designated GSBAs?

Please do something to end this abominable crime against humanity once and for all. Enough is enough.

Thanks.

Yours in the service of Mother Ghana,

Kofi Thompson.