A former Attorney General, Betty Mould Iddrisu has charged President Akufo-Addo who is also a former Attorney General to name one specific constitutional provision that allows burning of proceeds of crime after they are recovered.
Speaking on TV XYZ, she expresses serious shock at the public approval of the President regarding the burning of excavators by the Operation Halt team deployed by government to fight illegal mining on river bodies and forest reserves. “I wouldn’t have believed it, if I didn’t hear it from the President’s own mouth, I am shocked!!” she exclaimed.
She indicated that even recovery of proceeds from drug dealers after their arrest are not destroyed but the State rather auctions such recovered assets and the proceeds go back to the State.
Betty Mould Iddrisu explained that in her many years of practice as a lawyer and a law lecturer she has not come across any legal regime that allows anyone including the President to destroy proceeds of crime after recovery especially when those recovered proceeds are key evidence used in the trial of the culprits.
She noted that the reckless action of the task force could land the Country in serious judgement debts in future both locally and internationally.
She called on Government to use a more legal and prudent means to manage the recovered excavators and put them into prudent use to benefit the state rather than destroying them.
At a sod-cutting ceremony for the construction of the Law Village Project in Accra on Wednesday, April 26, 2021, President Akufo-Addo endorsed the burning of excavators and other mining equipment in the combat of illegal mining at the country’s river bodies and forest reserves.
According to him, anyone who has a problem with the ongoing exercise by Operation Halt should go to court.
“I know there are some who believe that the ongoing exercise of ridding our water bodies and forest zones of harmful equipment and machinery is unlawful and, in some cases, harsh.
“I strongly disagree, and I would advise those who take a contrary view to go to court to vindicate their position if they so wish. That is what the rule of law is all about,” the President said.
