Some missing excavators being sold in Côte d'Ivoire – Ken Ashigbey

Convener for the Media Coalition Against Illegal Mining, Mr. Ken Ashigbey, has revealed that some of the missing excavators have been sold in Côte D’Ivoire.
Vehicles and mining machinery including excavators, which were  seized by Operation Vanguard Task-force disappeared from the site where they were being kept.
This was revealed by the Minister for Environment, Science, Technology & Innovation and Chairperson for the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng when he made an official complaint to the police for investigation.
Some owners of these vehicles have tracked  the excavators and other vehicles to Navrongo, Beposo, Tarkwa Nsuaem and Tema with the help of tracking devices they had installed on the vehicles.
Speaking on Atinka AM Drive with sit-in-host, Kaakyire Ofori Ayim, Mr. Ken Ashigbey, said the coalition is reliably informed that some of these excavators have been sold and are currently in Côte D’Ivoire.
“It is important that we get to the very bottom because our intelligence reveals that some of these excavators have even been sold in places like Côte D’Ivoire. So it is very important we get to the bottom of it and find out if any of the miners paid bribes and retrieved their excavators….We even need to investigate the District Chief Executives who were in office as at the time these excavators were missing because they represent the President in their areas”, he added.
According to him, it’s either these DCEs are incompetent or they themselves are compromised and are involved in this illegality.
He called on the media to throw more light on the issue until the right and maximum punishments meant for the perpetrators of this crime are meted out to them.
Also Speaking with Atinka AM Drive, Secretary for the Small scale miners Association, Kwaku Gyamfi asked the Police to widen the scope of investigations in the missing excavators’ saga to unravel persons behind the canker.
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