The High Court in Accra has sentenced the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, to 20 years’ imprisonment on each of two counts after finding him guilty in the Akonta Mining illegal mining case. The sentences are to run concurrently. The court also fined him 10,000 penalty units on each count, while Akonta Mining Limited, which was convicted on two counts, was fined 15,000 penalty units on each count.
Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay convicted Chairman Wontumi on Count One, for assigning mineral rights without ministerial approval, and Count Four, for purposefully facilitating unlawful mining activities. Akonta Mining Limited was convicted on Counts Three and Six on similar offences. The court held that the prosecution had proved all the essential elements of the offences beyond reasonable doubt, finding that the accused unlawfully allowed another person to mine on the company’s concession without the approval required under the Minerals and Mining Act. The judge also ruled that Chairman Wontumi exercised effective control over the company’s mining operations, justifying the lifting of the company’s corporate veil and holding him personally liable.
The convictions followed the dismissal of a defence application seeking to postpone the judgment and refer constitutional issues to the Supreme Court. Justice Kocuvie-Tay ruled that the relevant provisions of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703), as amended by Act 995, were clear and did not conflict with the 1992 Constitution. The court further rejected the defence’s argument that the arrangement with miner Henry Okum was solely for land reclamation, holding that the evidence established that mining activities had been permitted and facilitated on the concession.
