The Office of the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice has disclosed that it did not receive any docket from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on investigations into Akonta Mining Company Limited until September 2025, despite the investigations having commenced in 2022.
According to an Citinewsroom report, the information is contained in a response to a Right to Information (RTI) request submitted by private legal practitioner Jonathan Owusu Asare, and signed by the Ministry’s Information Officer, Lydia Attoh.
According to the response, the CID began investigating Akonta Mining in October 2022 following petitions from Ing. Ken Ashigbey and Martin Kpebu, Esq., who raised concerns about alleged illegal mining activities within the Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve.
However, the Attorney-General’s office stated that it is unable to say precisely when the CID completed its investigations.
On the question of when the case docket was submitted, the response said the CID presented the docket to the Attorney-General and Ministry of Justice “on or about the 15th of September 2025.”
The Ministry further clarified that no docket relating to Akonta Mining was received between 2022 and 2024, despite the investigations having been underway during that period.
“This office did not receive a docket in respect of Akonta Mining within the stipulated time frame,” the response stated.
The RTI disclosure comes against the backdrop of public comments by Minister of State for Government Communications, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, who had accused the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration of failing to act on a completed CID investigation into Akonta Mining.
In media appearances, Mr Ofosu Kwakye claimed that the CID had concluded its investigations and submitted a report to the Attorney-General under the former government, Godfred Dame, but that no action was taken.
He suggested the inaction amounted to either incompetence or deliberate shielding of politically exposed persons.
The RTI response now provides an official timeline from the Attorney-General’s office, outlining when investigations began and when the docket was eventually submitted.
Akonta Mining, owned by the NPP’s Ashanti Regional Chairman Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, is the subject of two criminal cases for allegedly allowing mining in the Tano Nimiri Forest without authorization and allowing mining on its Samreboi concession without permission.