The deportation of a Chinese illegal mining ‘queen’ Aisha Huang “was a mistake”. President Nana Akufo-Addo has conceded.
According to him, the cumbersome processes and the “problems involved in prosecuting” informed the decision to let Huang off the hook and send her home in December 2018.
“…but on the hindsight…I think it was a mistake,” Mr. Akufo-Addo said at Princeton University in the USA.
Media reports said Aisha Huang was untouchable and had links to the top; credit to her survival in the illegal mining business for so long.
The move by the chief state attorney, Gloria Akuffo to discontinue her prosecution, therefore, received widespread criticism, especially since Huang has evaded arrest for years.
However, the government justified her deportation fiercely.
Speaking at a diaspora Townhall Meeting, Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo said a Chinese company, Sinohydro was “helping develop the infrastructure system in Ghana.”
Aisha Huang is masterminded several illegal mining sites in Ghana
“So, when there are these kinds of arrangements, there are other things behind the scenes. Putting that lady [Aisha] in jail in Ghana is not going to solve your economic problems,” he said.
The Attorney General’s actions were also defended as a discretionary power – to discontinue a prosecution without explanation — which she used.
Osafo-Maafo was widely condemned for his comments which the opposition NDC said undermined the sovereignty of Ghana, the Minority in Parliament even filed a motion for censure against him.
According to President Akufo-Addo, all foreigners caught in the illegal mining business henceforth would face the law.
He noted they would be processed under the newly amended illegal miming law which gives a minimum of 15 years imprisonment to convicts.
