Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has called for a thorough investigation into the disappearance and recent reappearance of the Akonta Mining galamsey docket.
It will be recalled that the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Dr Dominic Ayine, revealed the Akonta mining case was delayed because crucial dockets were concealed under the previous Akufo-Addo Bawumia administration.
Speaking during the stakeholder engagement on illegal mining assembled by President John Dramani Mahama in Accra on Friday, October 3, Dr Ayine stated, “I am happy to announce that in 2022, the police conducted a very diligent investigation in terms of Akonta Mining, but the dockets were hidden until we came to power. It was when I came in and began the investigation with the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources and the Forestry Commission, we were finding it difficult to get information on the case. It was then that the police themselves owned up and presented that docket to my office two months ago”.
“As we speak, the charges against Chairman Wontumi and Akonta Mining and five others have been signed. Currently, we are waiting for his rights to be read to him, and he has the right to remain silent before he is brought from Kumasi.
“His lawyers asked that he be brought on Tuesday, but I insisted that he be here on Monday. If he does not come on Monday, I am going to order his arrest so that he is brought to Accra and then we can start the prosecution,” Dr Ayine stated.
Reacting to the Attorney General’s comment, the renowned US-based Ghanaian lawyer noted that dockets do not hide themselves and alleged that someone deliberately buried it.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, October 4, 2025, Prof Azar wrote, “Who Hid the Akonta Docket?
The Attorney-General’s revelation that the Akonta Mining galamsey docket has resurfaced after four silent years should jolt the nation. This is no routine administrative lapse; it is a scandal that strikes at the heart of justice.
In 2020, police reportedly completed a thorough investigation into Akonta’s activities. Yet the file vanished until just two months ago.
Dockets do not hide themselves. Someone deliberately buried it. Until we know who, when, and why, the fight against galamsey, and other high-level crimes, remains a performance, not a policy”.
He further added, “The episode also exposes a troubling contradiction. In 2023, the then Lands Minister said Akonta Mining operated illegally in the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve. The President countered that the company was not engaged in galamsey “anywhere in the country.”
Who misled whom? And was that contradiction possible because the evidence had been tucked away?
This cannot be business as usual. A missing docket is not paperwork lost; it is justice stolen”.
Kwaku Azar further called on the AG to “commission a full, independent fact-finding probe to trace who suppressed the file, who benefited, and what other cases lie buried.
Only such a probe can unravel the puzzle, hold perpetrators accountable, demonstrate a commitment to investigative integrity, and prevent recurrence”.
“Reform must follow: digitise dockets, audit files, and hold gatekeepers accountable. When justice leaves no paper trail, impunity flourishes.
This is not political and must not be politicised. The hiding of police dockets is a red line that no democracy should ever cross.
The Akonta docket is more than a file recovered; it is a mirror held up to the state. Whether we stare into it or look away will reveal whether we truly intend to end galamsey or merely to manage its optics” he added.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, Andy Appiah Kubi, has confirmed that his client will honour the invitation.
According to Andy Appiah Kubi, the Attorney General’s warning is unnecessary as Wontumi has cooperated with investigators.
Speaking to Citi News on Sunday, October 5, Chairman Wontumi’s lawyer, Andy Appiah Kubi, stated, “We have been asked to appear at the police CID in Accra, which we are ready for, and we will be there at 10 am at the police CID headquarters.
“This announcement by the Attorney General surprises me. I said, we respect the invitation and we will honour it, but I think the warning that followed that announcement was unnecessary,” he said, adding We are not in any way going to disrespect the invitation.”
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