I Was Making $1M A Day Before Mahama ‘Strikes’ Me Down – Wontumi

NPP Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako says he will forever have a score to settle with former President John Dramani Mahama for the latter's unilateral role he played in collapsing his multi-million dollar small-scale mining company.

The outspoken NPP guru vowed not to forgive the former president for ordering the seizure and subsequent burning of his mining equipment in 2013 – and insisted that no amount of apology or compensation would make him forget the pain he felt on that fateful day.

I was deeply anguished and I will never forgive Mr Mahama for his witch-hunting,” he vowed. 

Chairman Wontumi, who is the MD of Hansol Mining Limited, had his company raided by a security task-force team on the orders of the then government in 2013, on suspicion of aiding some Chinese nationals to engage in illegal mining activities.

Some mining equipment as well as gold and money were taken away by the task-force who later set the entire place on fire.

That experience let him very bitter, thus he proceeded to court for redress and reports say won a judgement debt in the region of US$1billion.

Speaking on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana and monitored by Peacefmonline.com, Wontumi said he had a ‘fat pocket’ before his company’s collapse.

I was making one million dollars [$1M] a day by then before Mahama strikes me down,” he disclosed in broken English. 

Recounting how the former regime led by then National Security Coordinator, Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey [Rtd.] unleashed terror on him and thousands of his workers at a mining concession at Samanboi in the Western Region, he said, “I was on my way to my company, Hansol Mining, one day when I received a phone call from an unknown number.

“The caller told me President Mahama wanted to have a meeting with me on that same day, but I declined as I was on my way to attend to some pressing matters at the site.

“But the same number called for the second time and I was told to meet the president at Tamale in the Northern Region, so I agreed to be in that meeting. I remember vividly that the meeting was held on a Sunday," he narrated.

That was the beginning of his troubles after he literally snubbed attempts to lobby him (Wontumi) to his (Mahama's) camp by then President Mahama after he produced evidence of licences and legal permits backing his operations, he claimed.