Politics: Lands minister says ex-President Mahama is a conman not to be trusted

 Ghana's Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu says ex-President  John Dramani Mahama  is a conman that should not b...

 Ghana's Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu says ex-President John Dramani Mahama is a conman that should not be trusted.

"I’m telling the small-scale miners that this gentleman is a con man. He’s deceiving them and if they dare go in for him just because of galamsey, this country will come down,” Amewu said.

Amewu was replying to Mahama's take on the President Akufo-Addo's fight against galamsey after the ex-president said the campaign and fight can't be won.

Mahama was quoted as saying “…it is true that if we don’t do something about it (galamsey), it will destroy the environment. But we need to apply wisdom. Because we’ve chased young people involved in illegal small-scale mining with soldiers in the past in this country, but it didn’t work.”

The ex-President made the comment over the weekend while speaking at the National Democratic Congress (NDC’s) unity walk in Kumasi on Saturday, April 28, 2018.

Reacting further to Mahama in an interview, Amewu said that in under two years, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government had created 12 mining districts and 33 satellite districts.

Amewu also said the administration has decentralised the sector and bought the resources closer to the people in the mining communities.

Querying the ex-President, he said: “What has Mahama been able to do? Today, we have created a lot of mining districts, we’ve created 12 mining districts and 33 satellite districts. We are bringing mining back to the decentralisation level. The small-scale mining which was in the status quo was supposed to have mining communities. These were not inaugurated in all the years Mahama was President, we have just inaugurated them, bringing mining to the community of the owners of the resources."

Continuing, Amewu said: "Decentralisation, this is the approach so I am so disappointed in [Mahama]. He cannot address the problems. I’m telling the small-scale miners that this gentleman is a con man. He’s deceiving them and if they dare go in for him just because of galamsey, this country will come down.”