{"id":97012,"date":"2025-10-04T14:41:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T14:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=97012"},"modified":"2025-10-04T14:41:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T14:41:23","slug":"you-cant-rule-out-wontumi-as-a-major-galamsey-kingpin-elikem-kotoko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=97012","title":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t rule out Wontumi as a major galamsey kingpin \u2013 Elikem Kotoko"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Deputy Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, Elikem Kotoko, has said it would be wrong to rule out Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, as a key figure in illegal mining (galamsey) activities.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Prime Insight<\/strong><\/em> on Joy Prime on Saturday, October 4, during discussions on President John Mahama\u2019s engagement with civil society organisations (CSOs) on galamsey, Mr Kotoko said evidence gathered over time suggested that Mr Wontumi\u2019s operations extended widely within the illegal mining chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot rule out that Wontumi was one major kingpin who was having a lot of tributaries. So that is one big shot you are trying to take down,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

Mr Kotoko also criticised former President Nana Akufo-Addo for publicly defending Chariman Wontumi and others accused of illegal mining without proper investigations. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou saw how he always rushed to the defence of these people without any thorough investigation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He noted that such political interference weakened the country\u2019s fight against illegal mining. <\/p>\n

\u201cThose were the things that should have allowed somebody to realise that this was rather what is called an enabler of the enterprise,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"YouDeputy Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, Elikem Kotoko, has said it would be wrong to rule out Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, as a key figure in illegal mining (galamsey) activities.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[275,789,196,2019,1883,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chairman-wontumi","category-elikem-kotoko","category-galamsey","category-hp-news-10","category-national","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=97012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=97012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=97012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=97012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}