{"id":406558,"date":"2018-03-05T13:53:49","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T13:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=406558"},"modified":"2018-03-06T08:45:26","modified_gmt":"2018-03-06T08:45:26","slug":"release-exton-cubics-equipment-minister-orders-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=406558","title":{"rendered":"Release Exton Cubic&#8217;s equipment &#8211; Minister to police"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, has requested that the impounded mining equipment belonging to Ibrahim Mahama&#8217;s E&amp;P be released back to Exton Cubic Group Limited.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Osei Mensah&#8217;s action follows advice from the Attorney General urging him to do so.<\/p>\n<p>This is according to a letter sighted by <strong>Citi News<\/strong>\u00a0from the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council to the Ashanti Regional Police Command.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2017, Mr. Osei Mensah, <strong><span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/08\/21\/ar-minister-accused-of-unlawful-seizure-of-mining-trucks\/\">ordered the seizure<\/a><\/span><\/strong> of the equipment because Exton Cubic was said to be prospecting without a permit at the Nyinahini bauxite concession of the Tano Offin Forest Reserve.<\/p>\n<p>At the time, the mining company\u00a0maintained that the seizure of vehicles belonging to Ibrahim Mahama\u2019s Engineers and Planners (E&amp;P) was unlawful because it was in possession of three required permits.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_406570\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-406570\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-406570\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Exton-CubicEP-equipment.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Exton-CubicEP-equipment.jpg 600w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Exton-CubicEP-equipment-300x211.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-406570\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Some of the impounded earth moving equipment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The company had also complained that it was being targeted by the government for political reasons, due to Ibrahim Mahama\u2019s relations with former President Mahama.<\/p>\n<p>It further complained that the confusion in Nyinahin and the seizure of the equipment was costing <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/08\/24\/equipment-seizure-costing-us-40000-daily-exton-cubic\/\">over $40,000 daily<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>But the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Peter Amewu, eventually revoked these permits because they were found to be invalid due to non-compliance on the part of Exton Cubic.<\/p>\n<p>The Sector Minister explained that the company\u2019s failure to provide key documents covering its acceptance of the lease, notice of pendency, environmental impact assessment and other statutory requirements rendered the leases invalid.<\/p>\n<p>This decision was later overturned by a High Court after Exton Cubic filed an application for a review of the decision.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_406573\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-406573\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-406573\" src=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Peter-Amewu-AND-Simon-Osei-Mensah.jpg\" alt=\"Peter Amewu (R) and Simon Osei Mensah (L)\" width=\"600\" height=\"449\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Peter-Amewu-AND-Simon-Osei-Mensah.jpg 600w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Peter-Amewu-AND-Simon-Osei-Mensah-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-406573\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Peter Amewu (R) and Simon Osei Mensah (L)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The\u00a0court judgement held that Mr. Amewu exceeded his powers by withdrawing the license\u00a0in line with Exton Cubic&#8217;s assertion that the Minister\u2019s decision was unreasonable, unjust, and an abuse of his powers.<\/p>\n<p>The court, however did not legitimize the operations of Exton Cubic in the Nyinahini bauxite concession.<\/p>\n<p>A Deputy Attorney-General, Godfred Dame, has given some indications the government intends to further pursue the case of the validity of Exton Cubic Group Limited\u2019s permits to prospect in the concession.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, has requested that the impounded mining equipment belonging to Ibrahim Mahama&#8217;s E&amp;P be released back to Exton Cubic Group Limited. Mr. Osei Mensah&#8217;s action follows advice from the Attorney General urging him to do so. This is according to a letter sighted by Citi News\u00a0from the Ashanti Regional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":404117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,11],"tags":[10467,3,10385,151],"class_list":["post-406558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-top-stories","tag-exton-cubic-company-limited","tag-ghana-news","tag-nyinahini-bauxite-concession","tag-peter-amewu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/404117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}