Nana Addo is the real con man, Akandoh returns Amewu’s salvo

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Juaboso Constituency in the Western Region, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has labelled President Nana Akufo-Addo as a man more befitting of a con man tag.

His dig at the president represents his riposte to Lands and Natural Resources Minister, John Peter Amewu’s description of ex-President John Mahama as a con man.

“If you want someone who is a con man, I’m going to tell Amewu who a con man is.

“A con man is somebody who told the people of this country that look, vote for me, if I come I’ll legalise galamsey, and when he comes back he bans even legal mining.

“A con man is somebody who will tell us that look, vote for me, if I come I’ll give every constituency $1 million and he comes back and he will come and cut even the District Assemblies Common Fund and tries to give it back to us as that money that was promised.

“A con man is somebody who will promise us that look if I come I’ll pay teacher trainee allowances and then he comes and pretends as if he is changing that one into degree, so that now it is a tertiary institution and it will not need any allowance.

• 'Describing Mahama as conman disrespectful'

Kwabena Mintah Akandoh was speaking Tuesday on Accra based Radio Gold in reaction to Amewu’s expression of disappointment in the ex-president’s recent comments on efforts by the Nana Addo administration to combat illegal mining in the country.

“A con man” he added, “is somebody who will promise the whole country that look, vote for me, if I come, I am going to create one dam in every village in the northern parts of the country and he comes and you ask him and he says oh, it’s the rainy season, it’s the dry season, tell Peter Amewu that if he doesn’t know who a con man is, that is who a con man is.”

John Peter Amewu

• Ignore Mahama, he’s a conman – Amewu tells Ghanaians

Amewu reacted with shock to Mahama’s claims that the use of force was never a solution to ending galamsey because he had previously applied it but failed to achieve the desired results, as well as recommending more tact and a review of existing regulations, which he said his government had done and which is available to guide the new administration.

Amewu who said he previously held the former president in high esteem, however said not even a sheet of paper on the issue was left behind by the erstwhile Mahama administration, describing the ex-president, also as a failure unfit to be advising a working government.

But according to Akandoh, what ex-President Mahama had said was that there was no need reinventing the wheel in tackling the galamsey menace because he had once employed force to deal with the situation but it did not yield the desired results and that he was best placed to advise the government.

He insisted, just as John Mahama, that the mining challenge was more about livelihoods and that a more considered approach is to provide alternatives and not just chasing and shooting people to get them to stop.