Posted:Daily Guide |Tuesday, 08 February 2011
www.dailyguideghana.com
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration seems to have lost confidence in the entire security apparatus of the state as it relies on private investigators to unearth corruption.
This has manifested in the contracting of investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his private investigative firm, ‘Tiger Eye’ to uncover the rot at the Tema Harbour.
Yesterday, there was utter confusion in government and the ruling party over which state institution funded Anas’s investigative piece, which has exposed massive corruption at the port.
While the Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, released a statement that the state funded it, Deputy Finance Minister, Fiifi Fiavi Kwetey denied the claim.
“The Finance Ministry did not pay a dime, not one penny, not one pesewa,” Fiifi told Accra-based Citi FM.
But another statement issued and signed by National Propaganda Secretary of the NDC said “The NDC also commends the Minister of Finance, Dr. Kwabena Duffour and his Ministry for collaborating with Mr. Anas, enabling him to investigate and analyze the situation at the GPHA from 2005.”
But Abdul Malik Kweku Baako Jnr, Editor-In-Chief of the ‘New Crusading Guide’ newspaper where Anas plies his profession has denied the claims by government and the National Propaganda Secretary of the ruling NDC, Richard Quashigah, that government sponsored the investigations.
Mr. Quashigah also alleged that former Chief of Staff under the erstwhile Kufuor administration, Kwadwo Mpiani, failed to fund a similar investigation.
Mr. Baako said Anas never solicited funds from Mr Mpiani. “Anas has been doing investigative work since 1999 and has not been funded by any state institution or government agency.
However, his work has had support from within and without all networks whereby both public and private agencies are activated depending on the nature of investigations.”
For instance, he said “Anas was arrested by the police during the Elubo investigation and together with Halifax Ansah-Addo was nabbed over the Kwame Nkrumah Circle investigations as were the two female staffers at the Tema Harbour and these agencies were activated to assist their release.”
President Atta Mills who rushed to Tema Port upon the release of the damming video indicting CEPS officials said he had wished the expose was done by state agencies.
A statement issued by government yesterday under the hand of Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa, a Deputy Minister of Information, stated that the two recent investigative works by Anas, “the cocoa smuggling report and the latest on happenings at the Tema Port were funded by a state institution.”
He indicated that the principle behind the state funding the two projects was to “employ counter-check measures in order to assess whether or not existing systems put in place were yielding the required results.”
Mr. Okudzeto-Ablakwa hinted of several other strategies that had been deployed at the instance of President John Atta Mills in the fight against corruption and stressed that "the president is determined to win this fight at all cost."
However, he said the funding was not given to him as an investigative journalist with New Crusading Guide but as a private investigator with ‘Tiger Eye’.
“At no time did we use the New Crusading Guide,” Okudzeto told Citi FM last night.
Though details of the said state institution which commissioned the investigative piece are being kept under wraps considering the conflicting accounts of denials and admissions by some government officials and the ruling party, speculation is rife that the Ministry of Finance may have collaborated with Anas and his team.
This, according to sources, was in view of the fact that there was an existing turf-war between two government ministries over the activities and operations of Destination Inspection Companies (DICs) at the Tema Port.
The Finance Ministry is said to be having issues with the operations of the DICs since they were believed to be under- invoicing and thereby not raising the needed revenue for the state and pushing for them to be replaced while the Minister of Trade, Hannah Tetteh, who has oversight responsibility over the DICs was not doing enough to expose them.
Eventually, the investigations ended up exposing the corrupt officials of the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) who were supposed to be making revenue for the state.
But Mr. Okudzeto Ablakwa told DAILY GUIDE “we want to do a full disclosure at a later time. Now our focus is on the arrest and finalizing dockets and looking at possible prosecution.”
Asked whether this does not defeat the essence and relevance of state institutions like the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), CID and National Security operatives mandated by law to investigate some of these unhealthy practices that lead to the loss of massive revenue to the state, the Deputy Information Minister said “it will keep them on their toes.
You know that the main reason why we created Customs was to check against people importing things and then the state losing money, but some officials there have become compromised.”
“Sometimes we send a security task force and sometimes some of them become compromised so the President is saying ‘look, enough is enough’ we want to make sure that we use every available means.”
In spite of that, Mr. Ablakwa said “we will continue to strengthen our institutions, sack those who have been compromised, punish them, bring in new hands but our institutions are best served when they know that there are counter measures to access the systems that are in place.”
He saw nothing wrong with the government or any state institution contracting a private investigator or an investigative firm to undertake undercover investigations for them even when there are state-funded institutions mandated to carry out such duties since according to him, “this is used all over in the world where people want to cross-check systems to ascertain the reliability of officials
“We just wanted to put this out so that we will just focus on the work Anas has done and the fight against corruption…You see state institutions alone cannot fight, we can collaborate with reputable and distinguished citizens and private investigators like Anas, we will do that so, that at least there is a watchman watching the watchmen,” he said.