The Fourth Estate CMS

Author: Seth J. Bokpe

  • CHRAJ investigates Akufo-Addo’s nominee for Gender Ministry

    CHRAJ investigates Akufo-Addo’s nominee for Gender Ministry

    The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) is investigating allegations of conflict of interest against the Deputy Minister-designate for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Francisca Oteng-Mensah.

    The Kwabre East MP is accused of using her influence as the Board Chairperson of the National Youth Authority (NYA) to lead the board in approving the procurement of sanitisers from a company in which she is a director and shareholder.

    Documents from the Registrar General’s Department show the Adonko Bitters Limited has nine directors, including the lawmaker and her father, Kwaku Oteng.

    Ms Oteng-Mensah is alleged to have supervised the board to pay GH₵700,000 to Adonko Company —a subsidiary of the Angel Group of Companies.

    A resident of Nima in Accra, Ismail Mohammed, on January 21, 2021, therefore, petitioned the anti-graft institution to look into the conduct of the MP, insisting the NYA’s GH₵3 million expenses on a COVID-19 campaign in 2020 had elements of impropriety.

    The NYA board’s approval of the expenditure on March 31, 2020 came at a time the country had recorded more than 150 cases of COVID-19 and was girding its loins to confront the pandemic.

    Fourteen out of the 15 board members of the institution were in a Zoom meeting to approve the amount. That meeting had the board chairperson, Francisca Oteng Mensah; the CEO, Sylvester Tetteh; and a Deputy Executive Director of the National Service Secretariat, Henry Nana Boakye, in attendance.

    Minutes of the board’s virtual meeting on that day show the CEO presented management’s proposal for GH₵3 million for a campaign to support the government’s fight against COVID-19.

    Three board members, Joshua Makubu, now the Oti Regional Minister; Henry Nana Boakye, now the New Patriotic Party’s National Organiser; and Theodora Williams Anti, now the Acting Executive Director Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA), supported the management’s proposal.

    This paved the way for the Board Chairperson to call for a voice vote on the matter.

    “Majority of the members voted for the approval of GH₵ 3 million for management to undertake various activities towards the fight against COVID-19, with no indication of dissention,” the minutes said.

    However, a member of the board, Emmanuel Yao Dormenya, asked for more than approval. He suggested that “management should submit [a] budget to the finance committee for scrutiny.”

    Ms Oteng-Mensah shot the idea down.

    “The Chairman in view of the exigency of the request directed the CEO to present regular updates on the activities on the board’s page and a comprehensive report to the board on the outcomes of the lined-up activities under the programme during the subsequent meeting,” the board minutes indicated.

    The petitioner alleged that by superintending the meeting to approve the COVID-19 campaign, Ms Oteng-Mensah had violated Article 284 of the 1992 Constitution and Section 7 of the NYA Act.

    Both laws require that public office holders declare their interest in matters that are before them for consideration.

    The constitution says:

    “A public officer shall not put himself in a position where his personal interest conflicts or is likely to conflict with the performance of the functions of his office.”

    The NYA is no different. Its law states:

    “(1) A member of the Board who has an interest in a matter for consideration shall (a) disclose the nature of the interest and the disclosure shall form part of the record of the consideration of the matter; and (b) not be present at, or participate in the deliberations of the Board in respect of the matter.

    (2) A member ceases to be a member of the Board if that member has an interest in a matter before the Board and (a) fails to disclose that interest; or (b) participates in the deliberations of the matter.”

    With these laws in mind, the petitioner said Ms Oteng-Mensah rather “participated, deliberated and presided over this particular matter and subsequently failed to disclose her interest in matter.”

    On March 31, 2020, the NYA issued a statement launching a nationwide youth campaign against the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The authority mentioned that it would “restrict the campaign to electronic means, thus social media, traditional media and text messages. Short and informative videos and messages will be created and broadcasted on the various social media platforms, radio and television stations.”

    In April 2020, the National Youth Authority as part of its ‘COVID-19 Youth Campaign’  donated assorted essential medical logistics to the Ministry of Health. The items included goggles, personal protective equipment (PPEs) and hand sanitisers.

    Oteng-Mensah’s response

    In a response to the petition, the lawyers for Francisca Oteng-Mensah, Ghartey & Ghartey, told CHRAJ that the petition had “no facts that would support the belief that our client has been involved in a conflict of interest situation. There is without question no basis for the belief that there has been a conflict of interest situation.”

    The lawyers for the MP say the mere fact that the NYA board chair was linked to Adonko Bitters, where the NYA bought hand sanitizers, did not put her in a conflict of interest situation.

    “Respectfully, our client admits that she is and remains a director and shareholder of Adonko Bitters Limited. She was also a director and shareholder of Adonko Bitters Limited during the period, a subject matter of this petition. However, she is not in any way responsible for the da-to-day management of Adonko Bitters Limited. She is not an employee or a marketing and sales executive for the company. Our client submits further that she is not an executive director of Adonko Bitters Limited,” the response to CHRAJ stated.

    The NYA board chair, according to her lawyers, “never ‘participated’, ‘deliberated’ and ‘presided’ over the purchase of hand sanitizers from Adonko Bitters Limited as alleged by the petitioner”.

    An invoice from Adonko Bitters Limited, payment vouchers and a cheque from the NYA attached to the response to CHRAJ, according to Francisca’s lawyers, indicate that the purchase of and payment  for the hand sanitizers preceded the March 31, 2020 meeting cited by the petitioner as having discussed the Covid-19 expenditure.

    It said NYA paid GHc68,980.58 to Adonko Bitters for the supply of 290 cartons of hand sanitizers on March 29, 2020.

    Covid-19: Wa residents endorse Adonko Hand sanitizer. | KESMI 107.1 FM
    A petitioner is alleging that the NYA bought GHc700,000 worth of hand sanitisers from Adonko   Credit:KESMI FM

    The attached documents show that the invoice from Adonko Bitters and the Bank of Ghana cheque for payment are dated March 29, 2020. The cheque payment voucher from the NYA to the Bank of Ghana is, however, dated March 27, 2020, two days before the invoice was received.

    The lawyers said the amount was within the Public Procurement Authority’s threshold that the CEO of the NYA could approve without seeking the board’s approval, a reason the board was not involved in the deal. They told CHRAJ that the petitioner did not produce any evidence that links the board chair to the transaction.

    CHRAJ’s “delay” and Francisca’s deputy ministerial nomination

    The Member of Parliament for Essikado-Ketan and Senior Partner at Ghartey and Ghartey, Joe Ghartey, told The Fourth Estate that CHRAJ’s investigation into the allegation had unduly delayed. He said this was a straightforward matter and that his client had provided all the necessary documents and evidence to enable CHRAJ arrive at a conclusion. He says this was not a case that should travel over a year.

    He strongly believes the MP and board chair is innocent and that the delay amounts to justice being denied her.

    On the deputy ministerial nomination of Francisca Oteng-Mensah, Joe Ghartey, who is a former minister of Justice and Attorney-General, believes the current probe by CHRAJ should not impede her appointment.

    He says the law only bars persons that have been found guilty by commissions of enquiry and not the mere fact that an allegation has been leveled against someone and that allegation is being investigated.

    According to him if allegations and investigations are used to stop people from holding office, anybody could be paid to make allegations against a person nominated to serve a public office in order to stop them. He says Francisca Oteng-Mensah is innocent and wants CHRAJ to expedite its investigation and come out with a conclusion.

    CHRAJ’s Conflict of Interest position

    However, CHRAJ has confirmed to The Fourth Estate that it has almost completed investigations into the matter.

    According to CHAJ’s Guideline on Conflict of Interest (COI), ‘when the promotion of private interest of a public official result or is intended to result in or appears to be or the potential to result in an interference with the objective exercise of the person’s duty and an improper benefit or an advantage by virtue of his/her position, then it constitutes a COI.”

    CHRAJ defines “a Public Officer as a person nominated, elected or appointed to serve in a public office.”

    In recent times, the commission has found a number of public office holders guilty of conflict of interest and recommended various sanctions against them. The most notable one is the dismissed Public Procurement Authority (PPA) CEO, A.B. Adjei, who was found guilty of Conflict of interest and banned from holding public office for 10 years.

    Mr. Adjei was investigated by CHRAJ for corruption and conflict of interest after he was accused of using his office for personal gains.

    He was caught in an investigative report of The Fourth Estate’s Editor-in-Chief Manasseh Awuni Azure in 2019, which revealed that a company owned by Mr. Adjei was winning government contracts and selling them to prospective buyers.

    READ MORE AT:

    CONTRACTS FOR SALE: Special Prosecutor slaps former PPA boss and brother-in-law with 18 charges 

  • VIDEO: How CCTV camera caught uniformed Ghana Fire Service man in shoplifting and phone theft

    A fireman with the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) who did the unexpected inside a supermarket, thinking his action was hidden, held his head in disbelief when a video of his conduct was played back to him before his superiors.

    The shop stands on the edge of a road which joins the Bolgatanga-Navrongo Highway from the direction of the Upper East Regional Hospital. It is painted in a deep shade of green and nailed atop its roof is an upright board boldly showing its trade name― Joy Step Supermarket.

    The fireman, Ibrahim Mohammed Alemiakurugo, had joined a number of shoppers at the store on the hot and humid night of June 1, 2022.

    Shortly after the fireman had stepped out of the shop, a polo-shirted young man, who had bought items at the store earlier and left, reappeared. He is Mohammed Sidi, a computer technician fairly familiar to some Bolgatanga residents.

    With long strides and feverish haste, the young man made his way back into the supermarket. He looked very desperate.

    He approached the sales clerks with a complaint that his mobile phone― a black Tecno smartphone― had gone missing. He told them he might have left it on the counter while paying for the goods he had bought.

    His complaint interrupted sales activities temporarily. An unusual scene was created in the shop as a search for the phone began. But the sales staff had first asked among themselves who possibly was responsible for the disappearance of the device.

    While the search was underway, the customer-turned-complainant stood speechless in front of the counter. Filled with disquiet, he ran his fingers through his hair and let out a long sigh of despair from time to time.

    His worry was not just about the contacts on the missing phone. He had been contracted to execute some graphic-design projects under a strict deadline. The tasks had been completed but had not been forwarded yet to his impatiently waiting clients. Those pieces of work were on that smartphone, too.

    The search was taking so long with no hope of recovery. But suddenly, the frustrated customer himself suggested that the sales personnel go into the store’s security camera system and view the footage recorded from his first visit onwards.

    They abandoned the search upon that advice and moved to a desktop computer connected to the Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) system in the variety store.

    An Unlikely Suspect Uncovered

    All eyes were trained on the 12-inch screen of the security monitor. A string of clips was chosen from a file of video recordings on the computer. Then, a finger hit the playback button.

    A uniformed customer appeared on the screen. His service cap was not on his head. The black beret was rather stuck halfway into a pocket at the back of his trousers and was partially hanging out from under his untucked shirt like a tail.

    The officer walked through a passageway in the store and stopped in front of a stocked shelf. He picked a roll of powdered milk sachets from the rack, folded it and placed it back on the shelf. Then, he went for another roll of a different brand of powdered milk on the same shelf.

    He stretched his neck and gazed over the top of the shelf in a manner quite similar to how somebody who is about to commit an offence would first check to see if they are being watched.

    He then observed the product. Again, he stretched his neck over the top of the shelf with a watchful eye. Then, he folded the roll, thrust it into his left trouser pocket and pulled down his shirt to conceal it.

    He kept looking over the top of the rack while using both hands to adjust his shirt to ensure that the items he had pushed into the pocket were well hidden.

    The clip also showed him picking two more rolls. But he dropped those ones just before another customer appeared and joined him at the shelf.

    Another scene involving the same firefighter came into view on the screen. This time, he was at the counter, where the complainant had suspected he left the phone. He was holding in his right hand a baked food item wrapped in a transparent polybag and staring indecisively at it.

    At that point, the complainant appeared, walking towards the counter in a white polo shirt and a pair of black trousers. Slim and dark in complexion, Sidi was seen holding a black smartphone to his left ear with his left hand as he approached the checkout.

    Upon arrival at the counter, he pulled out some notes from his pockets. He placed the phone on the countertop and began to check the money.

    While the young man was checking the notes, the fire officer placed the baked food item beside a sachet of premix tea powder which was already on the countertop. He reached for a black polybag on the counter, removed a loaf of bread from the bag and placed the bread on a shelf that was standing within arm’s reach.

    Sidi was seen making payment. But he left the phone on top of the counter after making the payment. He took his change and turned his back on the phone. But he remained around the checkout, looking in every direction except his back. The fire officer stood with a few customers near the counter. He was doing nothing except just looking and turning around in the same spot.

    After a while, he drew closer to the counter. He looked around again and, certain that nobody was watching him, covered the phone with a black polybag and thrust the phone together with the polybag into the pocket of his trousers. He took the phone from the counter just before its owner picked up his own bag and left the shop.

    Search and Investigation

    After watching the footage, the owners of the supermarket were initially not quite sure that the man captured pilfering inside their shop was a fire officer. And none among those who had the firsthand view of it immediately knew where to find him.

    One of the store’s managers, Joyceline Abiire, related the development to a relation who is also a fire officer at the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) national headquarters in Accra.

    “I forwarded the video to him and asked him if it was their uniform,” she told The Fourth Estate. “He looked at it and confirmed that it was their uniform.”

    “He reported the matter at the national level. Then, they called the Regional Commander here. My interest was to get the customer’s phone back to him.”

    Subsequently, the Upper East Regional Fire Commander, ACFO Anthony Gyasi Boateng, reached out to Abiire by phone. He promised to dispatch a team to the supermarket to conduct an investigation into the reported act.

    Following that telephone conversation, the team visited the store and addressed its enquiries to the staff.

    But before the visit, the Regional Commander had received clips of the footage from the national head office and summoned the fireman to his office.

    “I brought him here,” the Regional Commander told The Fourth Estate, pointing at an upholstered seat in his office with a glow of disappointment in his eyes. “The video was shown to him. He confirmed he was the one in the video and he admitted the offence.”

    “We set up a committee. They met him. All that he said was put on paper and we forwarded it to our head office.”

    The Regional Commander also retrieved some of the stolen items from him― the mobile phone and the rolls of powdered milk and premix tea powder—before the team visited the supermarket. The man had consumed some of the milk and tea.

    The mobile phone, which had remained switched off for weeks since the day it was taken away from its owner, and the remaining food items were sent back to the supermarket by the investigation team. The team paid back Gh¢20:40p to the store for the already-used items.

    Soon after the enquiry visit, the fireman was interdicted, pending a final decision by the GNFS national headquarters.

    “I least suspected that the person who stole it was a fire officer,” said Sidi in an interview with The Fourth Estate after the retrieval of his phone. “I was worried and angry about the loss. It affected my business.”

    “People had given me some work to do, but because I couldn’t do it on time due to the absence of the phone, they had to take the work elsewhere. Some wanted to give me some fresh work to do but my line was off when they called me. They, too, changed their minds. I lost those coins that could have been mine.”

    Dismissal and reactions

    Several GNFS officers say they are crestfallen because Alemiakurugo was wearing the service uniform when he committed the act.

    “If he was in mufti, it may have been a different story,” the Regional Commander said. “But in uniform, in fact, it’s so pathetic for us.”

    On July 17, 2022, the fireman was fired. The GNFS’ Public Relations Officer in the Upper East Region, DOIII Callistus Nibunu, confirmed the dismissal to The Fourth Estate.

    He also shared in the worry voiced by the Regional Commander that the development had significantly dented the image of the GNFS.

    “Conclusive evidence was made that he committed the act, so his dismissal letter came. The act was committed in uniform. That sends a very bad signal as far as the image of the service is concerned.

    “No organisation will want to be tagged with such an act. It’s indeed a dent on the image of the service and the service has also used the Legislative Instrument 1725, which we are all bounded by, to apply the appropriate punishment as expected,” he said.

    The Regional Commander disclosed that the dismissal came just when the fireman was about to take his first-ever promotion examination. He would have been promoted from Fireman (FM) to Leading Fireman (LFM) if he had taken the examination and had passed.

    Reacting to his dismissal, the fire officer described the punishment as “too harsh”. He said the eyes of some of his coworkers were filled with tears of sympathy after he received his release letter on Saturday July 30, 2022.

    “It is true that it happened. But I thought the committee would have tempered justice with mercy. I don’t want to go scot-free, but the dismissal is too harsh,” he said.

    He added: “Recently, an officer stole our office items in the Savannah Region. You reduced his rank. You didn’t dismiss him. As a first-time offender, they should have taken my salaries for some months.”

    Opinions are divided in the region over the removal of the firefighter from office. Some residents say anything less than firing would have been a disappointing outcome.

    “It shouldn’t end at dismissal. He should be prosecuted. Once it has been established that he stole the things, I think the laws of Ghana need to follow,” remarked Eric Abambire Nsoh, a healthcare worker.

    For some, he ought to face punishment not only for the damage done to the image of the GNFS but also for some possible financial losses the victims of his theft may have suffered. But they think his dismissal is too severe for a married man.

    “I’m of the view that the rule of law has not been applied. I condemn what he did. But this is petty stealing. He should be punished but not to the extent of dismissal. I think a reduction of rank, or transfer, would be fine.

    “We know people who have done worse things in the fire service and are still in the service. The rule of law has not been applied because if he had been taken through the lawcourt, it wouldn’t have ended in dismissal but in being fined. The fire service has no right to dismiss him because no court of competent jurisdiction has found him guilty yet,” an educationist, Tii-roug  Zumah Yaro, opined.

    FULL DETAILS: Achimota Forest lands, gold businesses and guns in Sir John’s will

  •  Nigerians dominate Ghana’s foreign prisoners list, in spite of arrests of hundreds of Chinese

    A long red bus parked in front of the Tamale Central Prison in June 2021. Armed immigration officers were on guard, ushering in groups of 43 men and a woman into the bus.

    They had regained their freedom after 99 days in the Tamale Prison in the Northern Region of Ghana.

    They were Nigerians locked up for three months for offences, including staying illegally in Ghana. The court that sent them to jail also sent them away from Ghana.

    It was the court’s order that they should be expelled from Ghana after serving their sentences.

    According to Joy News, it was the first time the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) was deporting a large group of people from the Northern Region in response to a wave of illegal entries into the country.

    There are more Nigerians in Ghana’s prisons than any other foreign citizens, The Fourth Estate has found.

    The Fourth Estate wrote to the Ghana Prisons Service through the right-to-information (RTI) law requesting data, including the number of foreign inmates in the country’s prisons.

    From the data, out of the 893 foreign prisoners in the country’s jails as of July 2021, 314 were Nigerians.

    It means Nigerians constitute 35% of the foreign convicts in Ghana’s prisons and 2% of Ghana’s total prison population As at July 27, 2021, there were 13,200 convicts in prisons across the country.

    Country Prison population
    1.    Ghana 12,307
    2.    Nigeria 314
    3.    Togo 125
    4.    Burkina Faso 106
    5.    Niger 98
    6.    Benin 85
    7.    Cote dÍvoire 69
        8.Mali 34
       9.Liberia 19
       10. Zambia 4
        11. Tanzania 4
       12.  Kenya 3
      13. Guyana 3
       14. Cameroon 3
        15.Zimbabwe 3
        16. Uganda 3
        17. Sierra Leone 2
          18. Gambia 2
         19. South Africa 2
          20. Malawi 2
           21. Britain 2
           22. China 2
            23. Spain 1
           24. Morocco 1
           25. St Vincent 1
            26. United States 1
           27. India 1
           28. Malaysia 1
            29. Jamaica 1
            30. Venezuela 1

    Source: Ghana Prisons Service

    Although Chinese illegal miners are among the highest number of foreign suspects arrested in Ghana in recent times, there are only two in Ghana’s prisons.

    Ghana has no extradition treaty with China requiring that Chinese offenders in Ghana be repatriated to their country to face the law.

    Ghana’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, made this position clear in May 2021 when he appeared on Joy Fm’s Newsfile programme.

    With Ghana reviewing its mining law in 2019, the Attorney-General was emphatic that, under the revised law, no Chinese citizen arrested for illegal mining would be deported.

    “The current laws do not countenance the extradition of any Chinese after the person has been convicted. So, you can be assured that the process will be followed to its conclusion and there will be conviction and they will serve their sentences in Ghana after which they will be deported if any.”

    At the time, he made this commitment, he said 45 persons, including 10 Chinese were under prosecution for engaging in illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

    Ghana’s water bodies and forests have come under intense attack from illegal miners who, with little regard for the environment, mine in water bodies or on river banks.

    Illegal miners have destroyed many water bodies in Ghana

    The environmental consequences have been devastating, according to experts. Traces of two heavy metals, arsenic and mercury, have been found in the country’s rivers in researches conducted by the Water Research Institute (WRI).

    These chemicals have been tagged as harmful by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Although the WRI found small traces of the dangerous chemicals in some of the water bodies, the WHO paints a deadly picture of the chemicals, saying even small amounts may cause serious health problems, and are a threat to the development of the child in the womb.

    Data for 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020, which The Fourth Estate received from the Ghana Prisons Service through a right-to-information (RTI) request showed that 220 people were jailed for illegal mining offences. These were mainly Ghanaians and other West African nationals.

    Ghana’s renewed fight against illegal mining between 2017 and 2021 saw the arrests of hundreds of Chinese illegal miners either as sponsors or workers at illegal mining sites.

    However, statistics of foreign nationals in Ghana’s prisons, which the Ghana Prisons Service provided to The Fourth Estate, showed that as of July 2021, only two Chinese nationals were in Ghana’s prisons.

    This does not come as a surprise to many because some of the biggest Chinese culprits in illegal mining and illegal logging, whose arrests dominated national headlines for weeks, were set free under inexplicable circumstances.

    Ghana launches effort to restore landscapes and rivers damaged by illegal mining
    Although hundreds of Chinese illegal miners have been arrested in Ghana, they are can’t be found in the country’s prisons   Credit: Revitalisation

    Disappearing Chinese

    The prosecution of two Chinese women heavily involved in galamsey and the illegal harvesting and export of rosewood was surreptitiously aborted and the two were deported at different times.

    In July 2019, Huang Yanfeng, aka Helena Huang, who was standing trial for transporting large quantities of rosewood to Tema for illegal export to China, was deported and her prosecution was discontinued.

    The most infamous case that outraged the nation involved another Chinese woman who was described as the “galamsey queen”. En Huang, for that was her name, was arrested on May 9, 2017, together with her gang of four other Chinese nationals.

    However, on December 19, 2018, the Attorney General filed a nolle prosequi to discontinue the trial.

    She was also deported.

    The then Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, defended the decision during a townhall meeting in the United Kingdom, choosing economic diplomacy over the punishment of environmental crimes Aisha Huang committed.

    President Nana Akufo-Addo would later describe the decision as a mistake during

     “I think the decision to deport Aisha Huang, in hindsight, was a mistake and that is why that process and procedure is being stopped,” he told his audience at a forum in the United States in September 2019.

    The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has refused to respond to The Fourth Estate’s RTI request on the number of Chinese nationals who arrived in the country from 2012 to date and the number deported during the same period.

    The GIS told the United Kingdom’s The Guardian in July 2013 that more than 4,500 Chinese nationals were deported after a series of swoops on illegal goldmines in Ghana.

    YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:

    Only two Chinese citizens in Ghana’s prisons despite hundreds arrested for illegal mining 

  • Anger as company clears 100-acre protected forest to produce beer

    Anger as company clears 100-acre protected forest to produce beer

    The Paramount Chief of Nakong, Pe Joseph Banapeh Afagachie II, said he had been stabbed in the back. He was talking to his council of elders and representatives of some state and nonstate institutions in the Upper East Region at his palace.

    There is a forest in his community. The forest is part of a restricted zone called Community Resource Management Area (CREMA). Pe Afagachie II was worried because a landowner in his chiefdom, Bukari Kobajei, had leased an estimated 100 acres of that forest to one of the leading beverage distributors in Ghana― Lesken Ghana Company Limited― to cultivate sorghum for commercial beer production.

    The educationist-turned-chief, aware of the consequences, expressed shock at how parts of the restricted forestland were released without his notice.

    The chief told the gathering he felt more disappointed because he had also found out that the agreement between the landowner and the company was facilitated by a member of his household.

    Pe Joseph Banapeh Afagachie II expressing strong reservations about the issue  at the meeting with his people

    Of great concern to him also was an official report that some economic trees had been knocked down in the process of preparing the land for the beer business.

    “A shea tree will take so many years to grow and to bear fruits. And you came and destroyed them in one day,” he said, choosing his words without hurry. “Do you destroy a baby to bring forth another baby?”

    The Little-known No-Go Area called CREMA

    The Forestry Commission of Ghana defines a CREMA as a “geographically defined area that includes a number of communities that have agreed to collectively manage their natural resources in a sustainable manner for their mutual benefits”.

    The CREMA initiative was established in 2000 by the government under the Ghana Forest Investment Programme (GFIP). The initiative is being sustained with funding from the World Bank to address Climate Change.

    There are six such areas within the Western Wildlife Corridor in Ghana’s north at present. The corridor starts from Burkina Faso and ends in Ghana, covering Ghana’s Upper East, Upper West, North East and Savannah regions. It is called the “Western Wildlife Corridor” in Ghana because it is a route used regularly by wild animals (including elephants) moving between Ghana and Burkina Faso and it lies on the left (western) side of Ghana. It is the opposite of the Eastern Wildlife Corridor that lies on the right (eastern) side of Ghana.

    Each of the CREMAs has a specific name as well as a number of communities under it and a CREMA Executive Committee (CEC) that protects it. The six CREMAs are named Builsa Yenning, Bulkawe, Chakali Sungmaaluu, Moagduri Wuntanluri Kuwomsaasi, Sanyiga Kasena Gavara Kara (SKGK) and Sissala Kasena Fraah. The Nakong Traditional Area falls under SKGK. The worried Paramount Chief is the patron of that CREMA.

    Environmental Activist causes arrests of five men inside SKGK CREMA

     Julius Atudeko Awaregya, an environmental activist, known to a number of nature conservation organisations in the world for his relentless campaign against misuse of the natural environmental, shares in the chief’s grief.

    He is in the front line of protests against the lease and the occupation of the restricted acres. On June 28, 2022, he and some officials of the Organisation for Indigenous Initiatives and Sustainability Ghana (ORGIIS-Ghana), a civil society agency he formed some years ago, led state security personnel into the forest.

    Five men, found clearing the land with two excavators for the company, were arrested and granted bail hours later at the Navrongo Divisional Police Headquarters. The culprits are Bismarck Agyei, John Awuni, Sebastian Afagachie, Kwabena Agyei and Cletus Akana. The activist told journalists about 15 acres had been cleared before the arrests cut the “illegal” operation short.

    The land has been reduced to nothing but bare ground

    “This is one of the six CREMAs within the Western Wildlife Corridor. The World Bank, through the Government of Ghana, spends $23 million each year for the creation of these CREMAs. And they have a second phase, which is now over 100 million dollars,” he told journalists.

    “All these monies I mentioned [are] not free, [are] not grants. They are loans the state takes to invest in the management of our natural resources. So, you’ll go and take [a] loan, invest in an area and, then, people will come and clear it in this manner― with impunity.”

    Communities leaders going over the CREMA map

    208 Economic Trees felled― Forest Services Division

    A report initially circulated that the acres the company acquired and cleared were within the Wildlife Protected Area. It turned out to be false when the Wildlife Regional Manager in charge of Ghana’s Northern Zone, Joseph Binlinla, confirmed it was rather within the Western Wildlife Corridor.

    Binlinla, who was part of the meeting at the palace, explained that the Wildlife Protected Area was a state property gazetted and protected by law. The Western Wildlife Corridor, according to him, is the opposite. He said it was owned by communities and was neither gazetted nor protected by law. He, however, added that government was interested in its protection and management.

    “If [the company] had gone to the Wildlife Protected Area, it would have been serious prosecution. The machines would have been set ablaze because it is against the wildlife laws of this country to get to a protected area with any machinery,” he told The Fourth Estate.

    Bulkawe and SKGK share boundaries as CREMAs. Some members of the 10 communities that are under SKGK say parts of the area acquired by the company are within the adjoining Bulkawe and the nearby Sissili Central Forest Reserve. None of the 15 communities that make up Builkawe has spoken to the issue yet. Meanwhile, the Executive Secretary of the SKGK’s CEC, Edward Allou Bagetewone, says the company will be sanctioned according to the CREMA Constitution.

    “Even if you are given whatever permits from EPA, from Forestry, from Wildlife, you still need to meet the CREMA for permission. Section 4 of our byelaws says no person shall at any time indiscriminately fell trees and uproot trees within the CREMA. For the categories of the trees that were felled, dawadawa (African locust bean) trees were there. We have also shea trees,” Bagetewone said in an interview with The Fourth Estate.

    He added: “Sanctions could be payment of fines, or we go to the law court. The farm falls within two areas― the on-reserve and the off-reserve. When you look at the map, the on-reserve is the forestry side and the off-reserve is our (CREMA) side. We are yet to meet as CEC. But we will come up with a report soon.”

    Meanwhile, a letter written to the company by the Forest Services Division (FSD) says 208 economic trees including rosewood, papao, shea and senya trees were destroyed. The FSD Manager in charge of the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, the Kassena-Nankana West District, the Builsa North Municipality and the Builsa South District, Emmanuel Owusu, told journalists the destruction was done outside the nearby Sissili Central Forest Reserve. He said the FSD had ordered the company― although it felled the trees outside a forest reserve― to pay a Gh¢44,161.70 fine for felling the trees without the FSD’s authorisation.

    Only a few trees are scattered on the land meant to preserve flora and fauna

    “Before you start the clearance,” an assistant programme officer at the Upper East regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Roger Yelsong Pondorh, told the company’s representatives in the meeting, “you have to get our permit.”

    “Because we have to come and inspect [to be certain] that where you want to [work] is not inside a forest reserve or close to a sensitive area,” he explained.

    “We didn’t know there was CREMA” ― Company

    The Manager of the company’s sorghum plantation project, Cletus Akana, told the gathering at the palace that the step the company took into the restricted land was a regrettable error.

    He said the company’s representatives had not come to the meeting to challenge anything said against the company by any stakeholders but to make amends wherever any wrongs had been committed by the company and to assist the community in charting a mutual way forward.

    Fielding questions from reporters at the palace, Akana explained that the company’s representatives followed due process in acquiring the land. He said the representatives’ first port of entry was the palace. The chief, according to Akana, said he did not own any land but suggested they look for those who owned land in the community. He said after a successful search for a landowner, they visited the land and expressed interest in it.

    He also stated that the contingent presented two goats, two sheep, two fowls, millet, tobacco and some other items the landowner reportedly demanded for the gods of the land. The gods, he explained, needed to be pacified with the items in accordance with the local tradition before any work could start on the land. He said the company was not CREMA-conscious as of the time it searched for the land, acquired it and cleared portions of it.

    “I believed that by seeing the landowner and giving the landowner animals to sacrifice to appease his gods meant he had given [us] the land. We didn’t know there was CREMA. We didn’t know there were a lot of stakeholders involved until this thing happened,” Akana said.

    “After our arrest and bail, we engaged the community and got to know that there was a society called CREMA. There were people in the community here who should know better and who should lead us. I think they didn’t play their part well― because they are from the community [and] they know that there is a society called CREMA. They should have directed us to see CREMA even before the landowner would give us the land.”

    Although Akana admitted the company hacked down some trees, he said the trees it felled did not have economic value. The landowner, an elderly man with a walking disability, told journalists at the palace he released the land because of chronic hunger. Leaning on a stick, he said he became too weak to farm on his own after he got injured in the waist while he was trying to pasture a cow in the community some years ago.

    “I gave the land to the company free of charge because of hunger. We agreed that they (the company) would always give me some of the produce they harvest from the farm from time to time to sustain my family,” Kobajei said.

    “The Mat is a Soothsayer” ― CREMA Chiefs

    Some four other paramount chiefs whose traditional territories are within the SKGK CREMA zone, from Upper East and Upper West regions, joined the host Pe Afagachie for the meeting.

    Three of the chiefs― the Paramount Chief of Kayoro, Pe Oscar Batabi Tiyiamu II; the Paramount Chief of Katiu, Pe Ayikode Zangwio Atoge IV; and the only paramount chief from the Upper West Region involved, Pio Sumaila Yakubu Batiadan II of the Banu Traditional Area― were at Nakong themselves.

    The other traditional leader―the Paramount Chief of the Builsa Traditional Area, Nab Azagsuk Azantilow II― was represented in the meeting by a retired National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) regional director, Pontius Pilate Apaabey Baba.

    The words spoken by the visiting chiefs during the meeting were few. The Paramount Chief of Katiu observed that time was of the essence to the company because the rainy season― the most suitable period for the farm project to begin― would soon pass. He said it would do every party good if the executive committee could come up with a rapid report on its findings so the CREMA authorities could decide in time whether the company should remain or relocate.

    The Paramount Chief of Kayoro said the CREMA authorities needed more time on their individual “mats” for further deliberations before they could draw any conclusion on the matter.

    “The Lesken people realised that they have erred. We can’t just use today to finish the whole matter. A team will go to the area and come back and feed us with information. Then, we will draw our conclusion.

    “There is a saying that the mat is a soothsayer. We will all go to our mats or wherever we are going to lie and think about it. We will get another day and meet over the matter,” he remarked.

    The Navrongo Divisional Police Commander, Chief Supt. Yahaya Muchiraru, told The Fourth Estate a police team had inspected the cleared acres and returned with a report that the acres were not in any forest reserve.

    The Divisional Crime Officer, ASP Kingsley Dan Addah, said the police had asked the chiefs to deal with the matter at the community level since it was a CREMA issue. He, however, stated that “the case is not yet closed”.

    Pe Afagachie II still looked bothered as he, after the meeting, made his way slowly out of the palace in the company of his elders. And by the time the curious members of the community were leaving the palace, they could tell that their paramount chief had enough to worry about.

    INSIDE STORY: The faces behind five impounded Rosewood containers

  • Only two Chinese citizens in Ghana’s prisons despite hundreds arrested for illegal mining 

    Only two Chinese citizens in Ghana’s prisons despite hundreds arrested for illegal mining 

    On May 10, 2021, three men stood in the dock in the quietude of the Koforidua Circuit Court, awaiting their fate.

    Their options were limited. It was either freedom or prison.

    Alhassan Abass, 28; Ibrahim Mohammed, 45; and Munkaila Djebo, a 38-year-old Nigerian, had been on trial for three years, charged with conspiracy to commit crime and mining without a license— breaches of Section 99 (2) of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006

    An anti-illegal mining (galamsey) taskforce had arrested the three at an illegal mining site at Tentenku No.8 near Kofi Pare in the Ayensuano District.

    They were among hundreds of Ghanaians and foreign illegal miners arrested in a crackdown on illegal mining, the degradation of forests and the pollution of water bodies with toxic chemicals including mercury and cyanide.

    In their defence, the three claimed they had nothing to do with the mining on the one and half-acre land that had contributed to the heavy pollution of the Ayensu River.

    They, therefore, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    Court documents show that the first accused, Abass Alhassan, claimed he was an excavator mechanic hired to repair a broken-down excavator while the third accused, Munkaila Djebo, told the court he was there to sell shoes.

    But the prosecution made its case, proving beyond reasonable doubt that the trio were guilty.

    In the end, the presiding judge, Mercy Addie Kotei, found the three guilty and sentenced each of them to five years imprisonment.

    She also ordered that Munkaila Djebo, the Nigerian, should be deported after serving his sentence.

    In a case with similar facts but in a different location and  culprits, a Takoradi Circuit Court on June 9, 2021, jailed three accused persons—Joseph Donkor, Charles Ewusi and Joseph Paul. They were sentenced to 15 years each and also fined GH₵ 720,000.

    They were arrested in February. Within three months, their trial was over.

    The presiding judge, Abigail Animah Asare, described the sentence as lenient as she had given the minimum sentence of the law because the three convicts had cooperated with investigators and the court.

    Similarly, on May 10,  2022, the Daily Graphic reported that eleven persons who were involved in illegal mining in the Atewa Forest in the Eastern Region were given between five and 15-years jail terms.

    Data for 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020, which The Fourth Estate received from the Ghana Prisons Service through a right-to-information (RTI) request showed that 220 people were jailed for illegal mining offences.

    These were mainly Ghanaians and other West African nationals.

    Ghana’s renewed fight against illegal mining between 2017 and 2021 saw the arrests of hundreds of Chinese illegal miners either as sponsors or workers at illegal mining sites.

    However, statistics of foreign nationals in Ghana’s prisons, which the Ghana Prisons Service provided to The Fourth Estate, showed that as of July 2021, only two Chinese nationals were in Ghana’s prisons.

    This does not come as a surprise to many because some of the biggest Chinese culprits in illegal mining and illegal logging, whose arrests dominated national headlines for weeks, were set free under inexplicable circumstances.

    Disappearing Chinese

    The prosecution of two Chinese women heavily involved in galamsey and the illegal harvesting and export of rosewood was surreptitiously aborted and the two were deported at different times.

    In July 2019, Huang Yanfeng, aka Helena Huang, who was standing trial for transporting large quantities of rosewood to Tema for illegal export to China, was deported and her prosecution was discontinued.

    According to the Ghana Immigration Service, Huang was deported for engaging in an illicit business.

    The most infamous case that outraged the nation involved another Chinese woman who was described as the “galamsey queen”. En Huang, for that was her name, was arrested on May 9, 2017, together with her gang of four other Chinese nationals.

    Aisha Huang, as she was popularly called, was charged with three counts of undertaking small-scale mining operations, contrary to Section 99 (1) of the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703); providing mining support services without valid registration with the Minerals Commission, contrary to the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703); and the illegal employment of foreign nationals, contrary to the Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573).

    The other four accused persons were charged with disobedience of the directives given by or under the Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573).

    This was two months into the heat of the campaign against illegal mining, a campaign championed by the Media Coalition Against Galamsey.

    Aisha was arraigned before the court on May 9, 2017, for engaging in galamsey activities at Bepotenten in the Amansie Central District in the Ashanti Region.

    However, on December 19, 2018, the Attorney General filed a nolle prosequi to discontinue the trial.

    She was also deported. Ghana has no extradition treaty with China.

    The then Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Kwaku Asomah Cheremeh, provided an excuse that the government’s critics described as irresponsible.

    “Our discretion was to the effect that the trial of Aisha Huang should be truncated to afford her the opportunity to go to her country. That was in line with the laws of our country. The Attorney General is clothed with the capacity to enter nolle prosequi in respect of this matter,” Asomah-Cheremeh told JoyNews.

    In April 2019, the then Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, told Ghanaians at a town hall meeting in the United Kingdom that the government didn’t want to sacrifice its diplomatic relations with China.

    He said the Akufo-Addo administration intended to partner with China in key infrastructural projects, including the $2 billion Sinohydro deal.

    “Today, the main company that is helping develop the infrastructure system in Ghana is Sinohydro, it is a Chinese Company. It is the one that is going to help process our bauxite and provide about $2 billion to us,” he said in justification.

    “So, when there are these kinds of arrangements, there are other things behind the scenes. Putting that lady [Aisha] in jail in Ghana is not going to solve your economic problems.

    “It is not going to make you happy or me happy. That’s not important. The most important thing is that she has been deported from Ghana,” he added.

    President Nana Akufo-Addo would later describe the decision as a mistake.

     “I think the decision to deport Aisha Huang, in hindsight, was a mistake and that is why that process and procedure is being stopped,” he told his audience at a forum in the United States in September 2019.

    Aisha and Helena were not the only Chinese to have escaped the jaws of the law.

    On June 24, 2021, The Fourth Estate wrote to the Ghana Prisons Service through the right to information (RTI) requesting data including the number of foreign inmates in the country’s prisons.

    The service responded in a letter dated July 29, 2021. From the data, The Fourth Estate found that there were only two Chinese convicts in the country’s prisons as at July 2021.

    When The Fourth Estate followed up, the Prison Service later declined to provide the crimes that got the two incarcerated.

    The two Chinese in Ghana’s prisons is in spite of the hundreds of Chinese illegal miners arrested from 2013 to 2020.

    The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has refused to respond to The Fourth Estate’s RTI request on the number of Chinese nationals who arrived in the country from 2012 to date and the number deported during the same period.

    The GIS told the United Kingdom’s The Guardian in July 2013 that more than 4,500 Chinese nationals were deported after a series of swoops on illegal goldmines in Ghana.

    The Ghana Immigration Service at the time indicated that data from the Ministry of Lands and Mines at the time showed that 3,800 submitted themselves for voluntary repatriation in 2014 alone.

    It appears the deportations were not deterrent enough, for the Chinese illegal miners returned in their multitudes.

    From 2017 to date, figures from some media reports show at least 150 Chinese illegal miners were arrested in Ghana. They were arrested at mining sites in the Ashanti, Western, Eastern, Central, Western and Western North regions.

    Data release threatens national security

    In August 2021, The Fourth Estate again wrote to the Ghana Prisons Service requesting further details on the crimes the foreign nationals in the country’s prisons had committed.

    But the Director-General of the service, Isaac Kofi Egyir, declined to release the data after requesting a meeting with The Fourth Estate team.

    His reasons were that such information could compromise the security of the prisons and also that it also had the potential to undermine diplomatic relations between Ghana and countries with inmates in Ghanaian prisons.

    Although his predecessor, Patrick Missah, had released part of the information in July, Mr. Egyir said the release of such information was not in the interest of the country.

    The Fourth Estate wrote to the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice requesting information on cases in which the Attorney General had decided to discontinue the trial.

    The Fourth Estate found that of the 54 cases whose prosecution the state discontinued, none of them involved the cases of Chinese citizens, including the major ones involving the rosewood and the galamsey “queen”.

    The Attorney General, later did not respond to request for comment on the number of jailed Chinese in the country’s prisons.

    Taming Judges’ discretion

    To make the punishment for breaching Ghana’s mining laws stiffer, the Akufo-Addo administration amended the Minerals and Mining Act in 2019.

    The new law explicitly criminalises aiding and abetting illegal mining activities and the use of unapproved equipment for mining in water bodies.

    It also prescribes a minimum sentence of 15 years and maximum of 25 years for foreigners who engage in illegal mining.

    When he met members of the Council of State in September 2019, the president said the motive for the new law was more than making the punishment for illegal mining stiffer. It was also to take away discretionary powers of judges who were sometimes seen as an impediment to the fight against galamsey.

    The president said the reason was “largely because, with the greatest of respect, they are not cooperating on these matters. People are caught, taken to court and granted bail. And then at the end of the day they disappear.

    “All these Chinese people are caught, they have been put before court, granted bail, you don’t hear of it again only to hear that they have resurfaced in the country,” he said.

    “So, we felt it was important to take over the discretion of the judges. It is unfortunate that that should be so because all of us should be able to trust the judges also to do their bit in stamping out crimes and their consequences in our society,” the president said.

    Contrary to the president’s claim that the judges were allowing the Chinese miners to walk free, many of the deportations and discontinuation of prosecution were not ordered by judges. They were decisions taken and justified by the executive.

    In the case of En Huang and her countrymen, it was not a judge who discontinued the case. It was the President’s chief legal adviser at the time, Attorney-General Gloria Akuffo.

    The lure

    Ghana is one of Africa’s largest gold producers and is among the top 10 producers of gold globally—a reputation that makes it attractive for both blue chip companies and illegal miners.

    So massive is the foreign invasion that, in 2013, the South China Morning Post, for instance, estimated that the number of Chinese miners in Ghana, mainly from China’s Shanglin Province, in the gold hunt, was about 50,000.

    Illegal foreign miners have a rather sneaky way of entering the small-scale industry. It takes only seeing the chief of the mining area and paying the lease to him to get mining concessions which, otherwise, are prohibited by the law.

    Section 83 of the Minerals and Mining Act states clearly that foreigners cannot engage in small-scale mining.

    However, foreigners are allowed into the small-scale mining sector to provide ancillary support in the form of technical support to small-scale miners.

    However, in recent times, some of these foreigners including Chinese nationals mistake their licences to mean they can fully engage in illegal mining.

    In some cases, some of the legal small-scale miners only take the mining licenses only to front for the Chinese.

  • Court orders release of Barker-Vormawor’s passport, lifts travel ban temporarily

    For six months, the state took away his freedom to travel. He was considered a flight risk.

    But #FixTheCountry Convener, Oliver Mawuse Barker-Vormawor, can now travel because the Tema High Court has lifted the travel ban on him a few hours to his  intended trip outside Ghana.

    “I am minded to say this after looking at the bill of indictment and the process thereof to conclude that the fact that one has been charged with a criminal offence does not take away the person’s constitutional right to freedom of movement,” the court said.

    The court also ordered the release of the activist’s passport to him ahead of his scheduled travel to Senegal to deliver a paper at a meeting of Human Right Defenders.

    The social media activist led a hashtag that took on the government for the country’s harsh economic conditions and constitutional arrangements that benefit the political class to the detriment of the ordinary Ghanaian.

    However, his posts would trigger the state to an action that has curtailed his freedom.

    On February 10, 2022,  Mr Barker-Vormawor wrote on Facebook that “If this E-Levy passes I will do the coup myself. Useless Army!”

    This followed pictures which emerged on social media from the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu’s 65th birthday party, showing an ‘E-levy’ cake.

    FixTheCountry convener Oliver Barker-Vormawor granted bail after 33 days in police custody | Pulse Ghana

    On his return to Ghana on February 11, 2022, he was arrested at the Kotoka International Airport, detained and later charged with treason felony, an offence he is fighting in court. His lawyers and some Ghanaians believe his comment does not warrant the charge.

    But the state does not think so.

    After more than a month in custody, he was released on March 17, 2022 with conditions that banned him from having his passport and travelling.

    Since then, he had been at the Ashaiman District Court in the last six months and his case adjourned six consecutive times while the state prepares to serve him with a bill of indictment.

    With his movement curtailed while his international peers in activism seek his experience, he went to the Tema High Court to challenge his right to travel.

    Making his case before the court presided over by Justice Daniel Mensah, he argued in an affidavit that months after his arrest, the prosecution was yet to commence committal proceedings to assess whether he should be committed to stand trial at the High Court.

    “The delays, which are entirely due to failings of the prosecution, breach my right to a speedy trial and have gravely affected my ability to effectively undertake my professional and academic engagements,” he said.

    The delays, he argued, had scuttled his professional engagement and career as he had been unable to accept any professional engagements outside the country nor travel to the United Kingdom, where he was studying at the University of Cambridge, in order to assess archival material for his doctoral research.

    With the West African Civil Society Institute requiring his presence in Senegal, he said he needed the court to unmake the bail conditions that had kept him from international flights.

    But the Attorney-General opposed the application, insisting that the prosecution had not delayed in the committal of Mr. Barker-Vormawor at the District Court.

    The Attorney-General in his affidavit in opposition to the accused person’s request backed its claim with the fact that Mr Barker-Vormawor had appeared before District Court judge, Eleanor Kakra Barnes Botchway, on June 29, 2022 for committal proceedings to begin but the matter was adjourned to August 1, 2022 for continuation.

    “The applicant has been charged with a serious offence and may not appear to stand trial if granted leave to travel out of the jurisdiction,” the Attorney-General further claimed

    Again, the Attorney claimed that although Mr. Barker-Vormamor had received the invitation to the event on June 30, 2022 and was to confirm attendance latest by June 4, 2022, he failed to confirm attendance.

    “He indeed has no real intention of attending the workshop, but rather to use the invitation as a ruse to obtain his passport to travel out of the jurisdiction to avoid standing on trial.”

    The Attorney-General continued:

    “The applicant has not provided evidence of a return date or flight to the country and has therefore not demonstrated a willingness to return to the country to stand trial.”

    The Attorney General alleged that by filing his application on July 12, 2022, six days after  being issued his  travel itinerary, the applicant intended to rush the court “into making a decision in his favour even though there is no demonstration that he would attend the workshop.”

    The A-G also pointed out that in the era of COVID-19 that allowed virtual meetings Mr Vormawor need not be physically present at the event.

    He therefore urged the court to dismiss the application.

    But the judge disagreed.

    “In this case, since the grant of bail to the accused person before me, he has religiously been attending court and thus complying with the court order,” he said.

    Justice Mensah asserted that Mr Barker-Vormawor’s travel would be outside the country from Monday, June 18, 2022 July 22, 2022 would not jeopardize the case.

    “Accordingly, I would order the District Police Commander of the Ashaiman District to release the passport of the applicant to him upon being shown a return ticket from and to Ghana within the aforesaid days.”

    He, therefore, removed the “stop travel order” within the period of Mr Barker-Vormawor’s trip to the West African country.

    He, however, directed the accused person to deposit his passport with the District Commander of Ashaiman Police District not later than 10am on July 25, 22.

    YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:

    Police admit planting “stranger” with bread in Baker-Vormawor’s cell as he sues for torture 

    And they sang ‘Arise Ghana youth!’ – #FixTheCountry protesters want Nkrumah back 

  • Town Topics:  Dear Organised Labour, the IMF is not the vampire

    Like sticks of dynamite tapped together with a short fuse, our times in Ghana these days are really threatening. “Volatile” may be is a more apt description.

    Drivers are wearing their tempers on their sleeves against prices of fuel, their attention often divided between the fuel gauge and the road. Market women have sharpened their tongues in defence of sharp rise in the prices of goods. The entire country seems brimming with pent-up anger ready to explode.

    The pain being felt across the country is evident in the recent Afrobarometer report in which 89% of Ghanaians said the country was heading in the wrong direction.

    The government can’t even afford to feed students. But for parents and philanthropists, students in some public senior high schools in the country would sleep on empty stomachs. Their counterparts in public basic schools, who are benefitting from the school feeding programme, are barely surviving on 97 pesewas. This amount can’t buy three sachets of water.

    The crisis has been long in coming. The government has been living beyond its means because of its reckless borrowing and an even more reckless spending, including COVID-19 funds that the government is struggling to account for.

    No matter how hard the government tries to massage them, the economic figures don’t look good. President Nana Akufo-Addo and his appointees have been in denial for long. This month, inflation hit almost 30%–the highest rise in the prices of goods and services since 2003. Coincidentally, Ghana was in the throes of the Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) programme at the time when the inflationary mess last hit the ceiling.

    To many Ghanaians, the current inflation figures is what is on paper. The true inflation is far higher than the official figures. Fuel prices have doubled from GH₵6 in January to almost GH₵ 12 in July, with a cascading effect on almost everything money can buy.

    Organised Labour threatens demo over poor wages | Rainbow Radio International

    How much has the government borrowed?

    The economy is choking on debt. The government has borrowed more than GH₵280 billion since 2017. Credit rating agencies—Moody’s and Fitch—have downgraded the country’s credit ratings, citing a heightened vulnerability to defaulting on paying our lenders and inability to access the capital market.

    The government claims that salaries and wages of the public sector munched the greatest chunk of its revenue but what happens when party faithful are packed into state agencies when they have no role to play? Today, interest payment on our debt is almost competing with public sector wages and salaries but many Ghanaians are asking what the money has been used for.

    Year 2016 2021
    Total debt GH¢53.4 billion 341.7 billion
    Compensation to employees GH¢14.1 billion GH¢33.0 billion
    Interest payment GH₵ 10.7 billion GH¢32.5 billion

    But how did we get here?

    The government says it is COVID-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war. On Thursday, Dr Bawumia, an erudite lecturer on economic mismanagement in the past, widened the scope to include the Mahama government’s excess electricity charges and a banking sector clean-up, which critics say was laden with more politics than economics.

    At a presentation in which he ducked behind his digitization drive, Dr Bawumia didn’t take credit for his government’s actions or inaction in the whole mess.

    Neither did he tell Ghanaians why Ghana’s economy is an outlier of high inflation, debt distress in the West African region and an outrageous currency depreciation.

    Admittedly, the twin troubles of external shocks—COVID-19 from 2020 and Russia-Ukraine war from February 2022— have a hand in our crisis that experts warn could morph into a national security threat.

    But it hasn’t been all doom for government. There are also developments that favoured the state kitty.

    When he presented the 2022 budget to Parliament last year, the finance minister pegged the benchmark crude oil price for 2022 at $61.23 per barrel. But Putin’s adventure in Ukraine has pushed global crude oil prices to more than $100 per barrel. This means the government is receiving a 40% increment in its expected oil revenue.

    Since the country has deregulated its oil sector, the government cannot claim to be burdened with subsidies. It even added more taxes, the COVID-19 levy and the sanitation levy.

    The rot

    In this period of economic crisis and shrinking of public expenditure, it is important to put the spotlight on some of the frivolous public spending in the recent past.

    Billions have been wasted in many scandalous enterprises under this administration. While the government has consistently used COVID-19 as an excuse for the economic kaput, how can it justify the GH₵500 million two ministries spent on fumigation and the graveyard of failed projects including One Village, One Dam and the almost GH₵30 billion worth of irregulaties in the last two Auditor-General’s reports?

    GhanaTalksRadio | zoomlion disinfects-109-markets-in-the-upper-west-region
    Only two ministries spent GHc500 million on fumigation exercise   Credit: Ghana Talks

     

    All these and other reckless expenditures sent us back into the arms of the IMF. Ghana’s romance with the IMF dates back to May 1966, three months after Nkrumah’s overthrow. Since then, we’ve made overtures at the Bretton Wood institution 18 times. The last one was in 2015 when Mahama’s government turned to the IMF for economic salvation.

    Each time we go to the IMF, we promise ourselves; it’ll be the last. When Ghana exited the last one in 2019, Mahama got his bout of insults, Akufo-Addo, Bawumia and Ofori-Atta received praises for keeping the economic ship assail. Bawumia even bragged about having arrested the depreciating cedi.

    But five years later, we’re back to square one.

    Managers of the economy, particularly, Mr Ofori-Atta had been emphatic on numerous occasions that Ghana would not join the IMF because of the repercussions.

    Less than two months afterwards, we’re begging for $1.5 billion in a three-year programme to given ourselves some credence before our lenders who at the moment don’t see us as responsible to trust us with their money.

    Effectively, Akufo-Addo’s two-term government will spend more time in IMF programmes than it managed the economy independently.  From 2017 to 2019, the economy was on an IMF life support.

    Whatever happened to our long-term vision, the finance minister had been proclaiming, only Gabby Otchere Darko, the government’s chief agenda setter, is better placed to explain.

    It has become obvious that the hesitation to go back to the IMF was political— the uncompromising stance and the wave of criticism then candidate Akufo-Addo and his running mate Bawumia heaped on Mahama.

    Ever since the government announced its decision, organized labour escalated its deep-rooted suspicion against the IMF.

    Who wouldn’t? This is particularly because the IMF has a history of having no sympathetic ears for Organised labour’s fears. Organised Labour had always suffered the austere measures that accompany IMF bailouts. These range from salary stagnations to a freeze in unemployment and sometimes layoffs in the name of workforce rationalization and downsizing.

    Keen on justifying why the IMF has saved our sinking ship, government spokespersons including Gabby Otchere Gabby and the Minister of information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, have sought to suggest that opposition lawmakers should be blamed for the failure of the e-levy to yield the required returns.

    The irony is lost on them.

    In 1995, Nana Akufo-Addo led the Kumi Preko demonstration, one of biggest anti-tax protests in the history of Ghana against the introduction of value added tax (VAT). The Rawlings administration bowed to the public agitation. It took three years to roll out VAT in 1998.

    Today in History: The 1995 'Kume Preko' protest that rocked Ghana
    President Akufo-Addo (2nd right) led the 1995 Kumi Preko demonstration against VAT     Credit: Ghanaweb

    In any case, Ghanaians voted the NDC lawmakers to be a voice of dissent when necessary. Had it not been the shoe-string majority it has in parliament, the NPP would have bulldozed their way, leaving the minority with only their say.

    While labour’s concerns are valid, the IMF in reality is just like a doctor treating any health condition. If you decide to visit the consulting room, you must as well adhere to the medical advice on offer.

    The IMF is clear on its conditionalities:

    “When a country borrows from the IMF, its government agrees to adjust its economic policies to overcome the problems that led it to seek financial aid. These policy adjustments are conditions for IMF loans and serve to ensure that the country will be able to repay the IMF. This system of conditionality is designed to promote national ownership of strong and effective policies.”

    Our government, which lived recklessly after exiting an IMF in 2019, is the vampire siphoning the lifeblood of the economy. In the corporate world, the fate of the executive management is inextricably linked to the bottom line; there is a strong motivation for management not to embark on imprudent expenditure.

    The last thing Ghana needs now is now austerity. It needs investment in infrastructure in health, education, communications and agriculture and well-motivated labour force.

    But that expenditure can only be delivered by institutions which are not in the grip of corruption.

    Unfortunately, the vanguards of the public purse, the Ministry of Finance, begs propriety. The Ministry has been on the grimmest page of the Auditor-General almost every year for every irregularity thinkable.

    We can’t blame it on the IMF. It falls squarely on our ‘solid’ economic management team led by Dr Bawumia and driven by Ken Ofori-Atta.

    So, dear Organised Labour, the IMF is not chewing your COLA.  The IMF is not the vampire that suck the lifeblood out of the economy.

    It’s our government.

  • Judge did not understand Sir John asset-freezing case- Special Prosecutor

    Judge did not understand Sir John asset-freezing case- Special Prosecutor

    The Special Prosecutor says the High Court judge erred in dismissing his request to confirm the freezing of assets of the late Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie.

    In a statement responding to Justice Afia Serwa Asare Botwe’s decision, the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, criticised the decision and schooled the judge on the matter.

    In June 2022, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) froze the assets of Mr Owusu-Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, after his will showed that he had gifted many properties, including lands at the Achimota Forest and the Sakumono Ramsar, site to his relatives.

    Mr. Agyebeng subsequently went to court in compliance with the Special Prosecutor’s law, Act 959, to ask the court to confirm the freezing.

    However, the court said the Special Prosecutor came on the back of the wrong law.

    The Special Prosecutor cited Sections 38, 39 and 40 of the law:

    Section 38: Freezing of Property

    1. Where the special prosecutor considers that freezing of property is necessary to facilitate an investigation or prosecution, the special prosecutor shall in writing direct the freezing of 

    a.The property of a person or entity being investigated: or 
    b. specify property held by a person or entity other than the person or entity being investigated or prosecuted.
    2. The special prosecutor shall within fourteen days after the freezing of the property, apply to the court for a confirmation of the freezing.
    Section 39: Application for freezing order
    An application for confirmation of a freezing order shall be made unnoticed to the respondent and shall be accompanied by an affidavit sworn to by the special prosecutor or an officer authorised in writing by the special prosecutor to swear the affidavit detailing the grounds for the confirmation.
    Section 40: Issue of freezing order
    1. where an application is made for a freezing order, the court shall issue the order if it is satisfied that 
    a. the respondent is being investigated for corruption or corruption-related offence
    b. the respondent is charged with corruption or corruption-related offence
    c. there are reasonable grounds to believe that a property is a tainted property 
    d. the respondent derived benefit directly or indirectly from corruption or corruption-related offence
    e. the application seeks a freezing order against the property of a person other than the respondent because there are reasonable grounds to believe that a property is tainted property and that the property is subject to the effective control of the respondent 
    f. there are reasonable grounds to believe that a confiscation order shall be made under this act in respect of this property.

    The court, however, said the antigraft institution should have come to court on the back of Section 54 of the law. That law states:

    “The Special Prosecutor shall apply to the court for a confiscation order in respect of tainted property if the person from whom the property was seized:

    (a)is on trial for corruption or a corruption-related offence or (b)is convicted of corruption or corruption-related offence but dies or absconds.”

    The court then dismissed the Special Prosecutor’s application for the freezing order.

    But, the Special Prosecutor disagrees with the judge’s position.

    “The judge with respect totally misapprehended the application for confirmation of the freezing order and misdirected by characterising the application as that of a confiscation order, which regime regimes are governed by different considerations,” the Special Prosecutor said in a statement shortly after the ruling.

    “The regime for application for confirmation of a freezing order is designed to facilitate an investigation or a prosecution to avoid dissipation of the property in question,” the statement added.

    Explaining the differences, the Special Prosecutor said that a confiscation order is designed to permanently deprive the owner of the property.

    “The special prosecutor asked for the freezing order to be confirmed to facilitate the investigations into the circumstances of the purposed acquisition by the deceased of protected lands in the Achimota forest enclave and the Sakumono Ramsar site. The special prosecutor did not apply for confiscation of the estate of the deceased,” the Special Prosecutor said.

    The Special Prosecutor warned of a dire consequence in the fight against corruption of the decision stands:

    “The net effect of the ruling of the high court is that a person may in his lifetime gleefully, acquire property through corruption and then upon his demise happily pass on the corruptly acquired property to his beneficiaries for their benefit and by so doing, extinguish all scrutiny as to the propriety or their acquisition of the property because his corrupt activities were not discovered during his lifetime.

    “If the decision is left to stand the country will lose the fight against corruption in unimaginable ways.”

    The special prosecutor is therefore appealing the decision while it continues investigations.

    Background

    The OSP began investigations following a petition by Corruption Watch to the OSP to investigate the acquisition of state lands.

    Corruption Watch petitioned the OSP after The Fourth Estate published the will of Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie.

    The OSP said last week that it had begun “full investigations into suspected corruption and corruption-related offences in respect of alleged improper acquisition of state lands at the Achimota Forest enclave and Ramsar catchment in Accra by the former CEO of the Forestry Commission, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie alias Sir John (now deceased) and other two persons.”

    The statement signed by Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, asked the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to cooperate in the investigations.

    The wealth Mr. Afriyie bequeathed to his family and loved ones shocked many Ghanaians when The Fourth Estate exclusively revealed the contents of his will. Of particular interest have been the large parcels of land he owned at the Achimota Forest and the Ramsar site, a protected area he had warned people against acquiring land while he was in office.

    Corruption Watch petitioned the Special Prosecutor “to investigate the alleged acquisition of several acres of alleged state lands situated in the Achimota Forest and Ramsar sites in Sakumono by three artificial persons namely Jakaypros Limited, Fasoh Limited, DML Limited, and two natural persons namely Charles Owusu, an officer of the Forestry Commission and Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, now deceased, who served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Forestry Commission from March 2017 until July 2020.”

    Per the laws regulating asset declaration in Ghana—Article 286 of the 1992 Constitution and Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act—Mr Afriyie should have declared his assets upon assumption of office in 2017.

    The Fourth Estate’s checks from the Auditor-General’s department, however, revealed he did not declare his assets.

    YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ: 

    FULL DETAILS: Achimota Forest lands, gold businesses and guns in Sir John’s will

    Special Prosecutor freezes assets of Sir John

    Corruption Watch, 14 CSOs petition Special Prosecutor, and CHRAJ over Sir John’s will

     

  • Sir John’s successor, three deputies have not declared their assets

    When John Allotey was appointed the Deputy Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission in 2017, he became the first person to occupy that position in the 18-year-old history of the commission.

    That office comes with a number of responsibilities including a constitutional demand on its occupant to declare his or her assets and liabilities.

    However, The Fourth Estate has found that Mr Allotey, has not fulfilled that legal obligation.

    FORESTRY COMMISSION BOSS HAILED FOR LUMBER CHECKPOINTS DEMOLITION - Environmental Guide
    Forestry Commission CEO, John Allotey                       Credit: Environmental Guide

    Mr. Allotey replaced the late Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie as the Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission.

    Mr Afriyie, popularly known as Sir John, died on July 1, 2020. Two months later, his deputy was elevated to the position of chief executive on August 25, 2020.

    Coincidentally, Mr Allotey co-witnessed Sir John’s controversial will in which he gifted plots of land in the Achimota Forest and the Sakumono Ramsar site and more than 70 other properties to his children and other relatives.

    The Fourth Estate revealed that Sir John did not declare his assets, and his successor and his deputies appear to have taken a cue from him.

    When Mr Allotey assumed office in 2017, Ghana’s asset declaration laws—Article 286 and Act 550—required that he declares all his assets and liabilities within six months.

    He was to declare all assets relating to the following:

    (a)lands, houses and buildings;
    (b) farms;
    (c) concessions;
    (d) trust or family property in respect of which the officer has beneficial interest;
    (e) vehicles, plant and machinery, fishing boats, trawlers, generating plants;
    (f) business interests;
    (g) securities and bank balances;
    (h) bonds and treasury bills;
    (i) jewellery of the value of ¢5 million [now ¢500] or above; objects of art of the value of ¢5 million or above;
    (j) life and other insurance policies;
    (k) such other properties as are specified on the declaration form.

    However, through a right to information (RTI) request to the Audit Service, The Fourth Estate has found that just like his late boss, Mr Allotey failed to adhere to the law as of May 22, 2017.

    He is not the only one.

    None of his three deputies – Martha Kwayie Manu, Nyadia Sulemana Nelson and Musah Iddrisu (Musah Superior)–have complied with the law.

    For the first time since its establishment in 1999, the Forestry Commission has three deputy chief executives on its payroll.

    The commission is responsible for the regulation of utilisation of forest and wildlife resources.

    This puts the trio in charge of the country’s 266 forest and game reserves and six Ramsar sites.

     Responses  

    John Allotey

    When The Fourth Estate contacted Mr Allotey, he said he had earlier declared his asset but could not remember the exact date.

    He, however, said he had recently picked the form and would fulfill the constitutional obligation.

    Martha Kwayie Manu

    Martha Kwayie Manu, the immediate past District Chief Executive (DCE) of Juaboso in the Western North Region, was appointed deputy chief executive of the Forestry Commission in April 2021.

    See the source image
    Martha K. Manu was appointed in 2021              Credit: Forestry Commission

    She didn’t respond to calls, texts and WhatsApp messages sent on June 13, 2022, until June 20, 2022 when she sent a response which read:

    “They [Audit Service] should check their records well. I have done this four years ago, so they should check or I have to do it yearly?”

    When The Fourth Estate asked whether she had the receipt of the declaration and whether she did it in Accra or in the Western North Region, she did not respond.

    Musah Iddrisu, alias Musah Superior

    Musah Superior accused of sidelining NPP executives in award of contracts - Diamond 93.7FMIn November 2021, Mr Musah Iddrisu took to social media to announce his appointment as a deputy chief executive of the commission. Before that appointment, he had spent four years in office as the Metropolitan Chief Executive of Tamale.

    There was no trace of him declaring his assets there. He didn’t respond to calls and text and WhatsApp messages on June 13 and June 14, 2022.

    Mr Iddrisu is currently contesting for the NPP’s General Secretary position.

    Nyadia Sulemana Nelson

    Nyadia Sulemana Nelson - Deputy Chief Executive Officer - Ghana Forestry Commission | LinkedInHe was also appointed in April 2021. He did not respond to calls, text and WhatsApp messages sent on June 13, 2022.

    Walking the talk

    Although President Nana Akufo-Addo has in the past touted his appointees’ adherence to the asset declaration law, some of them did not walk his talk.

    While 27 ministers and deputy ministers in his first and second term never declared their assets, 92 others including Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta; parliamentary affairs minister, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, and former senior minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, did not fully comply with the law.

    Opaque law

    Anti-corruption crusaders have over the years criticised Ghana’s asset declaration law for lacking transparency.

    They want assets and liabilities public office holders declare to be verified and published when they come to office and when they leave. However, public office holders opposed such demands, citing privacy concerns.

    In other democracies, assets declared are published. President Barack Obama, for instance, reported an income of $5.5 million in 2009 on his tax returns, most of it from his books, “Dreams from My Father” and “Audacity of Hope”.

    According to White House financial disclosure forms, the Obama family declared assets of $7.7 million, not including the family home in Chicago. But they did include the family dog, Bo, which was valued at $1,600, and filed under “gifts, reimbursements and travel expenses.”

    In Ghana, anti-corruption advocates, including OccupyGhana want the six months grace period in Act 550 removed from a new Conduct of Public Officers Bill, which is before the cabinet.

    It said the six months provides a possible window of opportunity for public office holders who do not declare their assets immediately they assume office to acquire possessions.

    “This is possible because although the Constitution categorically demands that persons being appointed to public office ‘shall’ declare their assets ‘before taking office.’ In 1998, politicians from all the political parties in Parliament, conspired to breach this constitutional provision by passing a law (Act 550) that allows the declaration to be filed up to 6 months ‘after’ taking office,” OccupyGhana said in a press statement in May 2022

    It went on: “The effect of this travesty is that for more than two decades, once people assume public office without first declaring assets and liabilities, they either do not declare at all, or sometimes engage in ‘assumptive declarations’ by declaring what they do not have, in the expectation that they might, while in office, acquire the assets or make sham payments in purported satisfaction of sham debts declared.”

    YOU MAY ALSO WANT TO READ:

    EXCLUSIVE: Sir John did not declare his assets 

  • Agric minister’s claims on maize-production figures since 1950 completely false

    On Tuesday, June 21, 2022, the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Afriyie Akoto, appeared on Joy FM to discuss topical issues concerning his sector.

    The ministry’s flagship project, Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ), became the most dominant topic of the conversation.

    He praised the achievement of the Akufo-Addo-led administration in the agriculture sector, scoring the PFJ a 100%.

    “Going back into the history of government expenditure, there’s no government that has spent so much on Agriculture and farmers as the Akufo-Addo government and has had this magnificent impact and it has been internationally acknowledged that this [PFJ] program is running successfully,” he said.

    The minister proceeded to make claims about supposed unparalleled achievements of the policy since 1950.

    Fact-Check Ghana has verified the claim Dr Akoto made and presents the facts below.

    Claim: “We have never been able to produce so much food. You go to the records from 1950, till now…Maize, until we came to office, we have never been able to produce 1.8 million metric tonnes. Don’t forget I was the ranking member of agriculture and cocoa affairs for eight years, so I know the statistics. Last year, we produced 3.1 million metric tonnes.”

    Verdict: Completely false

    Explanation: Through a right a right to information (RTI) request to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), Fact-Check Ghana has established that 12 years ago, under the Mills administration, the country produced more than 1.8 million metric tonnes of the grain. Ghana has since produced more than 1.8 million metric tonnes without any special initiative such as the PFJ, contrary to the Agric Minister claim.

    Below is a table showing the annual maize production figures from 2010-2021

    Year Production
    2010 1, 871,695
    2011 1,683,984
    2012 1,949,897
    2013 1,764,477
    2014 1,768,577
    2015 1,691,643
    2016 1,721,911
    2017 2,011,179
    2018 2,306,384
    2019 2,911,884
    2020 3,031,691
    2021 (Provisional) 3,584,501

    Souce: MOFA, 2022

    This is not the first time Dr Akoto has made false claims on food production, contrary to figures from his ministry.

    In February this year, he misrepresented soyabean and rice production figures before the Akufo-Addo came to power during a meeting with potential investors at a breakfast meeting in Accra.

    The one-day event, organised by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, was meant to woo investors into Ghana’s agriculture sector.

    Read more at:

     Meeting with Tony Blair: Agric Minister’s food production figures fact-checked

    When Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister-designate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, appeared before the Appointment Committee of Parliament on February 19, 2021, he made some claims about the government’s PFJ programme.

    Specifically, the claims he made related to the food security, production of maize, and quantities of fertilizer supplied under the PFJ programme.

     “Before we came into office in 2017, the highest amount of production of maize in this country was 1.8 million metric tonnes. And I am talking about 2016, which was the last year before we took over.”

    Again, Fact-Check Ghana found that claim and others to be full of falsehood and contradictions.

    Read more at:

    Ministerial Vetting: Afriyie Akoto’s Cocktail of False Claims and Contradictions