The New Patriotic Party's (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Cape Coast North, Horace Ekow Awusi, has condemned former Minister of Environment, Professor Frimpong Boateng, for what he perceives as hypocrisy.

Mr. Awusi claims Frimpong Boateng has benefited from illegal mining (galamsey) despite professing to combat the issue during the previous Akufo-Addo administration.

Professor Frimpong Boateng, who is currently under consideration for dismissal from the NPP after branding the party as inauthentic, authored a report detailing the government's anti-galamsey efforts.

This report was leveraged by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) during their campaign for the 2024 general elections.

In an interview on Metro TV's “Good Evening Ghana” on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, Frimpong Boateng implicated Ekow Awusi in the notorious case of the “missing excavators” during his term as Minister.

However, Ekow Awusi, a significant figure in the previous government's inter-ministerial task force against galamsey, has asserted that Frimpong Boateng profited greatly from galamsey, contrary to his public claims of opposing it.

Awusi further accused Frimpong Boateng of failing to disclose gold that had been seized and handed over to him by the task force, as well as releasing confiscated excavators associated with his son.

“All the gold we seized, we handed over to you (Frimpong). Where are all the seized gold we handed over to you?” questioned Ekow Awusi.

He continued, “Whenever we arrest and seize excavators, you come in and get them released. Little did we know they were for Joojo Frimpong Boateng.

"You were supposed to fight galamsey, but your own son was a chief galamsayer. You were benefiting. The sort of things you did at your ministry, some of us are just quiet because of the party.”

Ekow Awusi challenged Frimpong Boateng to “go and sue me if it is not true.”

Regarding Frimpong Boateng's report, Awusi alleged that the former Minister fabricated the document out of bitterness, aiming to undermine the NPP and the Akufo-Addo government during an election year.

He claimed, as the field officer reporting to the Professor, that his own findings were never acknowledged.

“You deliberately put in a fake report in an election year just to discredit the NPP and the government out of bitterness.”

“You were never in the forest. I was the one there, and I gave you all the report. What you included in your report was fake and concocted by you just to discredit the NPP and the government out of bitterness.”

In a bold assertion, Ekow Awusi once again challenged Frimpong Boateng: “Sue me if you deny what I’m saying.”