Chairman Wontumi jailed 20 years for illegal mining offences

The High Court in Accra has sentenced the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, to 20 years in prison after finding him guilty of illegally assigning mining rights and facilitating unlawful mining activities

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The prison terms, imposed on two separate counts, will run concurrently. The court also fined him 10,000 penalty units for each offence.

Akonta Mining Limited, the company at the centre of the case, was convicted on two related counts and fined 15,000 penalty units on each charge.

The landmark judgment is one of the most significant convictions arising from Ghana's long-running battle against illegal mining, or galamsey, signalling the courts' willingness to hold even high-profile political figures accountable for breaches of the country's mining laws.

Delivering judgment, Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay ruled that prosecutors had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Chairman Wontumi unlawfully dealt with mineral rights by allowing another individual to operate on Akonta Mining's concession without the approval of the Minister responsible for Lands and Natural Resources, as required under the Minerals and Mining Act.

The court further found that he deliberately facilitated illegal mining activities by granting access to the cession and supporting the mining operations.

Before the judgment was delivered, the defence made a last-minute attempt to halt proceedings by asking the court to refer constitutional questions to the Supreme Court. The judge rejected the application, ruling that the provisions of the Minerals and Mining Act were clear and did not conflict with the 1992 Constitution.

A key issue in the trial was whether Henry Okum had merely been engaged to reclaim degraded land or had been permitted to mine. After examining the evidence, the court concluded that mining—not reclamation—had taken place. Testimony showed that Okum was allowed to extract minerals from parts of the concession and use the proceeds to finance reclamation, a finding the court said amounted to an unlawful transfer of mining rights.

Justice Kocuvie-Tay also took the unusual step of lifting Akonta Mining's corporate veil, ruling that although a company is ordinarily separate from its shareholders, the evidence showed Chairman Wontumi exercised direct control over the company's mining operations. That, the court held, made him personally liable for offences committed through the company.

The High Court dismissed the defence's arguments that the absence of written agreements weakened the prosecution's case and rejected claims that Parliament's wording of the mining law required constitutional interpretation.

Chairman Wontumi was convicted of assigning mineral rights without ministerial approval and purposefully facilitating unlawful mining activities. Akonta Mining Limited was convicted on the corresponding corporate charges.

The offences were prosecuted under the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703), as amended by the Minerals and Mining (Amendment) Act, 2020 (Act 995), legislation introduced to strengthen penalties in Ghana's fight against illegal mining.

The judgment is expected to reverberate across Ghana's political and mining sectors, where illegal mining has become one of the country's most contentious environmental and governance challenges. It also sends a strong signal that criminal liability under Ghana's mining laws extends beyond companies to the individuals found to be directing their operations.