Dela Edem, the head of Corporate Affairs at the Mineral Commission, has blown an alarm on Kwame Baffoe, popularly known as Abronye DC, the Bono Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
According to Dela Edem, Abronye owes a mining concession and has been storming the Minerals Commission to see Martin Ayisi, who has now been reassigned to the Lands Ministry for license.
Speaking on a radio show, Dela Edem detailed, “When I went to the Minerals Commission, every evening, Abronye came to Mr Ayisi. Abronye has a mining concession. He came along with his document, looking for a license to go and mine. He usually comes around 5 to 7 pm looking for a mining license.
If not for Abronye, we would not know that during Akufo-Addo’s time, there was a presidency forest. A forest classified for the President. According to Abronye, people used Akufo-Addo’s name to claim the forest for galamsey”.
He further highlighted that the Akufo-Addo government is to blame for Ghana’s galamsey menace.
Dela Edem claimed that during President Kufour’s time, John Mahama’s time and Professor Mills’ time, Ghanaians did not hear of the galamsey menace until the time of Akufo-Addo, when they started using excavators, turning Ghana’s water bodies coloured.
He added, “From 2017, all the licenses that were being used to work were approved by the NPP, so even if John Mahama gave a hundred licenses in the year 2016, they abrogated them and an auditing and awarded their own companies.
That award of 323 contracts caused galamsey; it was no longer given to business-minded people or miners; they gave them to NPP members, and everyone was looking for money. So, they were just digging the ground anyhow because the NPP needed money.
During President Kufour’s time, John Mahama’s time and Professor Mills’ time, did you hear of any issues regarding galamsey? It was only under the NPP administration under Akufo-Addo that our water bodies started turning coloured because the NPP were using excavators for the illegal mining.
In 2020, the election year NPP issued 824 mining licenses for people to go and mine. In 2024, they issued 614 mining licenses. They were not giving the mining license to miners, but rather to their party members”, Dela Edem detailed.
Meanwhile, Abronye DC was arrested on 8 October 2025 and granted bail of GH¢1 million with two sureties.
According to reports, Abronye has been re-arrested and charged with two new criminal counts. The court has granted him bail set at GH¢1 million with two sureties for the offences related to false publication and insulting conduct.
Abronye has alleged that his second arrest was orchestrated by the bodyguard of NPP flagbearer hopeful, Kennedy Agyapong.
This marks the second time in three weeks that Abronye has been arrested.
In related galamsey news, a landlord at Osino Zongo in the Fanteakwa South District of the Eastern Region has been busted for selling his residential property to illegal miners (galamseyers).
The landlord, a middle-aged man, was arrested alongside three accomplices on Tuesday, October 7.
They were arrested following a joint operation led by Mercy Korang, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Fanteakwa South, and the National Security.
According to reports, the team, after a tip-off, stormed the compound, catching the suspects red-handed underground mining using washing equipment and other tools.
Investigation revealed, the landlord sold his four-bedroom house for GH₵800,000 to the illegal miners.
The illegal miners later disguised their operations as well-digging, but were later found out as their wells were later discovered to be underground pits used for gold extraction.
Some residents have raised an alarm that several houses in the area have already been damaged or demolished to make way for galamsey activities.
The suspects are now in police custody at Osino.
The DCE of the area, Madam Korang, described the development as troubling, stating, “This act of selling homes for illegal mining is destroying our communities from within. We will not allow such recklessness to continue”.
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