The Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) has frozen all bank accounts of Akonta Mining and the owner of the company, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, aka Chairman Wontumi, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), over allegations of financial irregularities.
Sources within the establishment confirmed to the Daily Graphic that the accounts of Akonta Mining and its founder, Mr Boasiako, were frozen under Section 56(1) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044), which authorises the FIC to restrict access to accounts where there is reasonable suspicion of illicit financial activity.
This latest action by the FIC underscores the agency’s intensified efforts to combat financial crime in the country.
Money laundering
The centre has recently stepped up enforcement actions targeting individuals and companies suspected of breaching anti-money laundering laws.
The freezing of Chairman Wontumi’s accounts is viewed as a significant escalation in the government’s broader campaign against corruption and financial impropriety in the natural resources sector.
In a formal directive issued to financial institutions, the FIC instructed that all transactions involving Chairman Wontumi, Akonta Mining and Hallmark Civil Engineering Limited be immediately halted “pending further directives”.
The investigation is the latest in a series of high-profile financial probes led by the FIC under its current leadership.
Chairman Wontumi has come under mounting public scrutiny as Akonta Mining has been at the centre of controversy following a directive by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources to revoke its operating licence.
At a press briefing in Accra last Monday, Lands Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah referred to Akonta Mining as a “criminal syndicate”, accusing the firm of conducting unauthorised mining activities in protected forest reserves.
This followed the alleged discovery that the company and its associates were neck-deep in illegal mining activities in the Samreboi enclave in the Western North Region, in contravention of the Minerals and Mining (Amendment) Act, 2019 (Act 995).
Mr Buah gave the directive after an intelligence-led raid on six mining sites by the security agencies and Forestry Commission guards, which led to the arrest of 51 illegal miners and the confiscation of 30 excavators and other equipment at those sites.
Source | Graphiconline
