The Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, Lawyer Kwaku Asoma-Cheremeh, has vowed to take legal action against some two persons who have been peddling falsehoods about him should they fail to retract those claims.
He has, therefore, issued a two week ultimatum to the wood dealers: Kofi Owusu and David Yeboah of Dormaa Wood Village to retract and apologise for the corruption allegations against him to save themselves from any legal legal tussle.
The two, in August, granted interview to two Sunyani-based radio stations Ark and Moonlite FMs stating that the minister had engaged the services of some two persons to extort monies from them and lumber dealers at the Dormaa Ahenkro wood village for smooth transportation of their illegal lumber to Burkina Faso.
The amounts, they said, ranged from GHS 6,000 - 60,000 which they had already paid, but was crippling their businesses.
The allegations follow the arrest of some 13 articulated trucks which Mr Asoma-Cheremeh impounded as part of his campaign against chainsaw operations.
But at a press conference in Sunyani on Tuesday, the minister debunked those allegations and labelled them as complete fabrications which were frivolous.
He stated that: "I am not corrupt and can never be corrupted" under any circumstances, challenging the allegators to report him to the appropriate authorities if they have the evidence.
He continued that his operations to clamp down on illegal lumbering could not in anyway be affected by those " "lies" that he believed were fueled by his political opponents because his campaign is in line with the President's vision to drastically reduce the depletion of the country's forest reserves and her water bodies. He added his fight against the canker will not be shuttered even if he leaves office as a minister.
He further urged Ghanaians not to relent on joining the fight against environment degradation since it is their constitutional rights.
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