$16 million scandal at GPHA teaser

Ogbamey Dares GPHA Boss

THE MANAGING Editor of the Gye Nyame Concord, Mr Alfred Ogbamey, has challenged the Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Mr Ben Owusu-Mensah, to go to court if he has nothing to hide in the alleged $2 million scandal at GPHA.

“He has bitten more than he can chew. We haven’t done the story yet and the man is running wild, threatening all over the place,” Mr Ogbamey told the Accra-based radio station, Radio Gold yesterday.

Mr Ogbamey, who retorted that the courts in the country were not made for Mr Owusu-Mensah and his family alone, added that he would also be interested to know if the GPHA boss would go to the same court that granted him ¢500,000 million damages against the National Democrat newspaper. “That would be striking”, he added.

He was responding to allegations of harassment and false claims levelled against him by Mr Ben Owusu-Mensah at a press conference he organised on Monday in reaction to a teaser the Gye Nyame Concord did last week about an alleged $2 million deal at the GPHA.

“He is going to court to seek prior restraint on a story I haven’t done so that I would be prevented from doing it, thinking that if he prevents me from doing it, no other newspaper in this country would do it”, he stressed, maintaining that Mr. Owusu-Mensah’s threat is a deliberate ploy to smear him before he comes out with the story in order to discredit the story.

A similar tactic was nearly used on me before l broke a story on conflicts within the security set-up sometime ago. In that particular case, l was to be publicly arrested and charged for buying a stolen car only to be bailed later, just to make a story l was about to publish look like l was out to seek revenge for my arrest. Unfortunately, we did the story on the day l was to be arrested at Metro TV compelling those involved to pass the story to other newspapers, including The Chronicle which investigated and found it to be baseless after l spoke to them.. Much later, l learnt from some of those involved in the attempted set-up that the lady complainant who was given information on my car details to lodge the complaint was a Nigerian prostitute who had been picked fro m the streets around Cantonment for that job and the Heritage newspaper carried that story, Ogbamey later told another radio station in the Western Region.

Mr Ogbamey said he is convinced that there is a story somewhere at GPHA and that he wanted to be fair to all the protagonists involved and do a well balanced story, explaining that “even in the promo that the man is fuming about, we captured what the whistleblower said against what he himself told me and yet he says he is going to court”.

Mr Ogbamey explained that the story the GPHA boss wanted to pre-empt was over allegations by a former Director of a company that won a $14 million contract at the GPHA that $2 million dollars was padded on to the contract to raise it to over $16 million so that the 2 million would be shared among various groups; an allegation he said the GPHA boss denies.

He has denied it but tapes, documents and other things convince me that there is a story and the attempt to scare me from doing the story by resorting to cheap libellous tactics won’t work, he said.

“Mr Ben Owusu-Mensah is not in a position to pronounce judgement on my journalism, and without boasting l have achieved much in my journalism career, including winning a GJA award and an American fellowship to study in an American university over my 10 years in journalism, he told the Radio Gold host.

“Nobody has accused me of corruption or blackmail before and this baseless accusation is only meant to scare me from doing the story. A lot of things have happened and people would know the story, whether he likes it or not”, Ogbamey said.

On the allegation of harassment, Mr Ogbamey said: “He says I am harassing him… I’ve had only two interview sessions with him; the first one I was with my Acting Editor, Mr Michael Antwi-Agyei, while the second one included the then Tema Regional Police Commander, ACP Odai ”, whom he described as a friend of Owusu-Mensah.

He said for the first time in the history of this country the GPHA boss says he would run to the courts to seek a prior restraint order to prevent a journalist from publishing a story he is yet to publish.

He said what the GPHA boss called a story at the press conference with selected media houses last Monday during which l was physically prevented from covering was only a teaser or promo of the story we are yet to do.

“I would love him to make me the determiner of a case of whether prior restraint can be given to prevent a journalist from publishing a story he intends to publish”, Mr Ogbamey told the host explaining that he enjoyed being in the limelight in another similar case that that set a legal precedent on whether newspapers can cover the courts and publish word for word the proceedings of the court without waiting for certified true copies.

Ogbamey recounted that story which he said occurred at the trial of Mr Kofi Coomson and Eben Quarcoo at their seditious and criminal libel trial, during which the prosecution led by former Deputy Attorney-General and one-time Mill’s running mate, Mr Martin Hamidu, sought to prevent the Chronicle newspaper and its reporter from covering the trial verbatim without waiting for the certified true copies of documents from the court. Represented by the celebrated Akoto Ampaw, Ogbamey said the Chronicle won that case after then Justice Victor Ofoe delivered a landmark ruling, which set the parameters for court reporting. “I covered the trial verbatim”, he said, adding that he would love to have a second chance at going into the history books.

“Let him go to court and l will meet him there. The court was not made for him and his family alone”, Ogbamey insisted to the face of the GPHA boss who got off his interview with Radio Gold because he claimed he did not want to debate the journalist on the issues in contention but preferred to meet him in court. “l don’t want to debate him. I’ll meet him in court”, he said when it was announced that the Editor had come on the phone line after he had finished exposing a Public Affairs Manager of GPHA on another radio network, Peace FM.

According to Ogbamey, Mr Owusu-Mensah should not think that if he succeeds in restraining him from publishing the story, the story won’t come out, stressing that “the man is just crying because for all you know, maybe, he has got something to hide and he thinks he can use the press conference to scare me”.

He had earlier exposed the Public Affairs Manager of GPHA, Mr Oscar Cudjoe, who earlier lied on Peace FM that he didn’t know who prevented Mr Ogbamey from covering the press conference.

According to Mr Ogbamey, because he had nothing to hide he responded to the invitation to cover the press conference only to be turned away by Mr Cudjoe, who claimed Peace FM that GPHA was unaware of who turned the journalist from the programme.

Samuel Asamoah, another reporter from the Gye Nyame Concord, who had been sent to cover the event which was supposedly opened to all media houses, was also turned away with the excuse that the open event was for selected media houses that did not know anything about the story involved.

Meanwhile, GPHA has since apologized for Mr Cudjoe’s folly.

Funny enough, Mr Ben Owusu-Mensah, at his publicity stunt, also called on the Attorney-General’s Department and Parliament to consider going to the aid of Ghanaians who are molested by people he called, ‘rogue journalists’ and that no amount of harassment would prompt him to bribe anyone, as if somebody had asked him for money.

Mr Mensah again pleaded with the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) to purge itself of characters he said were bringing the journalism profession into disrepute.

“It is about time the laws of the land protected public officials and individuals from such unprofessional journalists. Accountants and doctors strike out the names of rogue professionals from their registers,” asking why the GJA couldn’t do same.

Touching on the issue, he said the Authority in 2002 went on tender for the supply of three Ship-To-Shore (STS) and four rubber-tiered gantry cranes at $14.7 million.

According to him, upon advice, an additional $550,000 and $1.2 million had to be sought for extra spare parts modification of the booms respectively, bringing the final contract fee to $16.4 million.

He noted that following the difference of nearly $2 million in the contract, Mr Ogbamey and one Fred Kofi Lagbo, an alleged fugitive now in Nigeria, started harassing him. He claimed that then received ‘blackmailing text messages’ from Mr Lagbo.

He said despite furnishing Mr Ogbamey with all the documents concerning the contracts, he (Ogbamey) continued to harass him until such a point that he had no option than to report the matter to the Tema Regional Police.

Mr Mensah stated further that before the teaser last week, a senior government official hinted him that Mr Ogbamey had come to him (the official) with the same allegations, threatening that all he would lead evidence on that in court.

In the meantime, if you missed what the Gye Nyame Concord reported last week, which got the GPHA holding its press conference, take a look:

“What went wrong? How did a contract of $14 million jump to over $16 million?

“We arranged to pad it up with $2 million to be shared among us. Now they have cheated me and l will talk”, claims a whistleblower.

No, we didn’t do what he is alleging. The original arrangement was discarded. The paddling up didn’t happen and l will sue your newspaper if you go ahead with the report, charged Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) Chief Executive Ben Owusu-Mensah.

CATCH details of this amazing story soon in the Concord.