Mpianim’s Office In Ghost Names Scandal

...SPECIAL ASSISTANT IN HOT WATERS

Screaming, raving and ranting on his cell phone, Mr Kwasi Ankamah, Chief of Staff’s special Assistant at the Osu Castle, last Wednesday went berserk. This was when he threatened to make life uncomfortable by dealing ruthlessly with THE SUN in Court, should he wake up on Monday morning to see any publication on him about the sale of seized vehicles.

Carrying his threat to yet another level, he refused to comment on the subject matter raised before him that he was involved in wrong-doing during the sale of seized vehicles to the public.

It all started last Wednesday afternoon around 2pm when this reporter reached Mr. Ankamah on his cell phone to book an appointment for his reaction to the concerns of the public, that he had done something untoward while in charge of the sale of seized vehicles.

However hardly had this reporter’s statement ended, than he threatened to deal with the paper in court should he see any publication to that effect on the matter.

“I cannot grant you any interview about the seized vehicles. Go and write that your useless article about me. You will see”, Mr. Ankamah barked at the other end.

“Both Chronicle and The Vanguard have interviewed me about this same issue. I have no time to waste on the car issue again but be warned. If you write anything about me I would make life uncomfortable for you and sue you,” he raged on the cell phone.

“I cannot keep on speaking to journalists who use unanimous letters to interview people,” he screamed.

Last November, an attempt by The Sun to interview him about aspects of the issue in connection with illegal committees said to have been set up by him to dispose off seized vehicles, in the northern sector. This resulted in threats that if the paper published anything about the issue it would be sued to the point of its collapse.

The genesis of the issue is that, just when public eyebrows were being raised over what they called the illegal and dubious setting up of a committee by Ankama to dispose of seized vehicles, the Chief of Staff’s office had been rocked with what observers saw as a scandal over the same seized vehicles, which had to do with ghost names.

Late last year, the Controller and Accountant General’s department embarked on a campaign to remove ghost names from public payrolls.

Credible evidence in the custody of The Sun proved that about 13 people who allegedly benefited from the recent sale of the seized vehicles, have a single contact address. This development at the chief of staff’s outfit has set tongues wagging, as to whether it was not ghost names representing just one person.

The Sun had hardly gone far in its investigations when these names were traced to a deep voice belonging to a character that identified himself as “Sampson Sampana”, a private security guard at the Castle who has a strong link to Mr. Ankamah.

After several months of painstaking investigations however, and a pack of documentary evidence at our disposal, The Sun is now ready to crack the racket of secrecy behind the seized vehicles business.

While Ankamah continues his threats, The Sun’s Spotlight Team (ST) was able to interview the man who seems to hold the keys to the mystery, Sampana. In a documentary interview Sampana revealed how his name was changed to SAMP on the allocation list for the disbursement of the vehicles and also represent the ridiculous13, as well as his links to Ankamah.

It will be recalled that for sometime now, imported vehicles that have been seized by the state have piled up at the Tema Harbour and other locations, and are rusting away due to the vagaries of the weather. These vehicles should have been sold to the public so that the state could recover the revenue it had lost, as a result of the vehicles not being cleared by their original owners.

For a strange mass of inexplicable reasons however, these vehicles have been abandoned in the weather for months and years, while the nation continues to cry for more revenue for development.

Meanwhile Ghanaians from all over the country have been expressing interest in buying these vehicles for their personal use. Following hints The Sun received, there is the emerging case of that the stockpiling of the vehicles is a deliberate creation by certain people to give themselves room and time to sell the cars at their own pace to car dealers.

Technically, the allocation and sale of the vehicles is done by the Chief of Staff’s special assistant, Mr Kwasi Ankama with the assistance of officials from CEPS and the Ministry of Finance. But against this backdrop, there have been discordant whisperings about the mistreatment of genuine buyers of these vehicles who are treated with utter contempt.

Stay glued, THE SUN’S rays are still touching base everywhere. More anon!