Gov’t Hands Over 50 Acre of Cocoa Farm for Illegal Galamsey Mining

Nana Oboadie Opambour, Prez. Concerned Farmers

The Akufo-Addo Government has persuasively handed out a 50 acre cocoa farm as concession to a small scale mining company at Kyebi Apapamu in the Presidents Hometown in the Eastern region.

The shock is that the 50 acre farm belongs to Mr Abraham Kwaku Edusei, Ghana’s National Best Farmer for 2013, who is likewise the President of the Global Cocoa Farmers Association. The action made by government to have his farm destroyed has incited the Concerned Farmers Association which is promising to go on a national frenzy if Government doesn’t pull back from the intentions.

As indicated by the Concerned Farmers Association, It is unclear why Government has given out a cocoa farm as a gold mining concession, in a circumstance where the same Government has been battling unlawful mining. As of now, the company, Korl Ahwenase Mining Limited is readily set with excavators, graders and equipments to bulldoze the farm so as to make way for the illicit galamsey to prevail.

Excavators set to bulldoze the cocoa farm

There is an unmistakable signs of Government’s involvement as a signboard by the farm with seals of the Minerals Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forestry Commission and the Water Resources Commission, states it been given out as a concession for small scale artisanal mining.

According to Nana Oboadie Opambour, President, Concerned Farmers Association on a TV Africa Show, communicated that it’s very clear that Government doesn’t wish Ghana cocoa farmers well which he further proposed farmers to be in charge of the Agricultural sector in Ghana.

“Government has lied about huge number of things. Agriculture in Ghana is full of lies...If Tetteh Quarshie had destroyed cocoa in the past, would there have been cocoa today?” he stated.

Government's seal

In a video circulating on social media spotted by Iseegh.blogspot.com shows that a large number of the cocoa trees are fruiting with a significant number of them ready to be harvested.

The Concerned Farmers Association is cautioning that if Government doesn’t withdraw the concession by putting an immediate stop to the destroying of the farm, members of the association will likewise go on frenzy to destroy all cocoa farms in Ghana.

According to Nana Oboadie Opambour, this isn’t the first time Government is carrying out such acts; an instance is a 4000 acre of cocoa farm cleared at Akyem Adeeso forcefully for an unfruitful rubber plantation. He further alluded the situation as a security threat and a means to financial loss to the country.

However, Kwesi Adu Bondi, Member of Parliarment for Kintampo North has called on government to withdraw the concession referring the situation as discouraging.

by: Abel Ofori-Adeniran