Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II has exposed the fact that about 30 per cent of the people present during the regional consultative dialogue on small-scale mining at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in the Ashanti Region on Wednesday, 13 May 2021, know the people behind the illegal small-scale mining (galamsey) menace in the country.

He also noted that Ashanti Regional Minister Simon Osei-Mensah and Lands and Natural Resources Minister Samuel Abu Jinapor made attempts to convince him to stick to his speech and not go off-script to disclose certain information he may have on the menace.

Before reading his speech, the Asantehene went off-script to say: “Before I read my speech, yesterday, the regional minister and my son, Jinapor, asked me to go by my speech; they thought I will say something off-script but let’s be honest with ourselves, 30 per cent of us in this room know the people behind the galamsey menace".

“Let’s be honest with ourselves, else we will do these conferences to no avail", the traditional leader observed.

"Any chief who has given land for galamsey must feel guilty", he said.

"What kind of chief are you if you have given your land for galamsey?" he wondered.

"They said I shouldn’t speak; if I do, I will say a lot of things so I’ll stop here”.

The Asantehene, however, reiterated that he has warned his chiefs and elders to stay away from galamsey.   

“On my part, I have already warned my chiefs and elders against participation in such illegalities, and I will not hesitate to strongly sanction any such infraction.

"Already I have had reports on some things happening at Amanse, the Fomena area, and I will be investigating that to see what is happening,” he said.