Minister for Lands and Natural resource, Samuel Abu Jinapor has been named as the best and most efficient Minister under the President Nana Akufo-Addo administration alongside Minister for Energy, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh.
Broadcast journalist with Multimedia, Evans Mensah, who gave this judgment argued though the Lands Minister may not have succeeded in halting illegal mining (galamsey) completely, the footprints he is leaving at the Ministry as a young Minister is impressive.
According to him, coming off the back of being a deputy Chief of Staff, the highest position he had wielded till he was elevated to a Minister, Mr. Jinapor assumed the reins of a Ministry where others have failed and made instant impact.
He pointed out that Abu Jinapor’s journey in the Ministry may not have been smooth with the burning of excavators coming back to haunt him, Ghanaians are today seeing the devastation galamsey is causing since the noose was loosened a bit on the practice.
Mr. Mensah averred the number of policies introduced to enhance the fight against galamsey including tightening of the law to make it more punitive and the red zone policy implemented in forest reserves adds to his achievements at the Ministry.
He said, “We have seen the investigations that have been done and entire dossier put together by this Minister and handed over to the CID to prosecute in collaboration with the Special Prosecutor.”
“I think it’s really unfortunate the President made a comment recently almost absolving Akonta Mining of any blame when the institutions of state have vowed to do a proper job on this.”
“I thought that was unfortunate because it makes the job of this Minister, Abu Jinapor a bit more difficult,” he added.
According to him, the way the Lands Minister handled the Sir John matter estate matter in relation to the land at the Achimota Forest and stamping his authority and insisted that property will remain a forest reserve even before an investigation was concluded was quite impressive.
That, he said, was very courageous of Abu Jinapor considering who Sir John was in the NPP and the powers that would have conspired to put that in his Will.
“For a young Minister to stand up and say that was quite courageous for me,” he added.
Mr. Mensah indicated that his choice of the Energy Minister in that category is simply because he has been able to keep the lights on for Ghanaians, one of the most difficult things to do in the country.