Bernard Antwi Boasiako, the New Patriotic Party Ashanti Regional Chairman, commonly referred to as Charirman Wontumi has been found guilty and convicted on illegal mining charges.
The High Court in Accra found him guilty in a judgement on Monday morning and sentenced him to 20 years in jail.
He drove himself to the court premises in a grey-coloured Heavy Duty Toyota Land Cruiser (V8) and handed over the key to an assistant when he alighted.
Dressed in a yellow coloured ‘agbada’ with blue embroidery, Wontumi waved and gave salutes as he entered the courtroom.
But by 11:20am, when the court started reading the judgment, his mood changed.
After finding him guilty and convicting him in the Samreboi mining concession case, the court went ahead and handed him the 20-year jail sentence.
Graphic Online’s Justice Agbenorsi who was in the courtroom reported that the Accra High Court concluded that Wontumi and his company, Akonta Mining Limited, were found guilty on four counts relating to the assignment of mineral rights without ministerial approval and facilitating an unlicensed mining operation.
That was after the court presided over by Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay held that The prosecution's case was found that Chairman Wontumi and Akonta Mining permitted Henry Okoom and Michael Gyedu Ayisi to undertake mining activities on the company's concession without securing the prior approval of the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, and that they thereby facilitated illegal mining on the land.
In addition to the jail term, Chairman Wontuml will pay GHc 120,000 in default of which he will serve three years in prison.
His company however will pay GHc 180 on two counts.
Relying largely on circumstantial evidence, the court was of the view that the absence of ministerial approval was never contested by the defence, describing the admission as implicit since no application for approval had been made by the company.
Chairman Wontumi had told the court he had granted Henry Okoom permission only to reclaim land by planting coconut, and not to mine.
He said he did not know Okoom was a small-scale miner, maintaining Okoom had rather presented himself as a mine support service provider.
The court, however, held that this explanation could not stand.
It added that Chairman Wontumi led no evidence to verify Okoom's claimed reclamation experience, and that Okoom, in unchallenged testimony, told the court he mined on unmined portions of the concession to recover costs after Chairman Wontumi failed to give him money for the reclamation work.
Relying on the principles on circumstantial evidence set out in Duah v The Republic [1987-88] 1 GLR 343, the court found no reasonable explanation existed to rival the conclusion that Wontumi had knowingly permitted Okoom to mine.
It dismissed as an afterthought Wontumi's later explanation that he expected Okoom to recover his costs from the eventual sale of matured coconuts.
Corporate veil
Citing the exceptions in the seminal case of Morkor v Kuma, the court lifted Akonta Mining's corporate veil, finding no functioning management or executive board within the company.
It held that Chairmam Wontumi was the true de facto holder of the mineral right and the sole controlling mind of the company during the period the offences were committed.
"The A3's corporate veil should be lifted as there is no real difference between the two (Chairmam Wontumi and Akonta) in relation with dealing with the the persons permitted to mine.
"There was no functioning management board and executive management board to deal as a company. All acts were done by Chairman Wontumi, the true de facto holder of the mineral right," the judge said.
Several lawyers took turns to pray for mitigation and impressed on the court to give the convict the minimum sentence.
More to follow..
