Dear Tarzan,

I was filled with amusement as I read through your treatise to me dated October 16, 2009. My initial feeling was to fire a response to you immediately, since I found it to be very empty.

However, unlike you, as amply demonstrated in your handling of affairs when you were put in charge during the ‘year long’ Ghana @ 50 celebrations. I had my priorities right and did not allow your cleverly-worded threats push me to jump to my keyboard. I decided to do it in my own time.

Even though you did not indicate that you are copying the letter to me personally to third parties, you had your acolytes who were themselves and their families beneficiaries of the booty at Ghana@50 splash it on their front pages of their newspapers, and I could almost see you giggling like a teenager at the sight of the publications.

In the first place, you were right that the last time we ever had any interactions was in Europe, specifically, it was at Heathrow Airport in London, when I was on my way to Belgium after being nominated for the prestigious Lorenzo Natali Prize for Excellence in Journalism As it turned out, I did not win the Africa Prize, I won the Global Gold Medal. I became the first African journalist and the youngest in the history of the award to win the coveted prize bestowed on an accomplished journalists by the International Federation of Journalists.

By the way, even when I won those awards, including best Investigative journalist in Ghana for 2001/2002, it was not headline news. You surprise me, however, by saying ‘I had acknowledged and appreciated that (your) mentoring and encouragement had contributed to the recognition being given to (me).’ This is because you had never been my mentor for me to have recognized you as such. If you were my mentor, I would have disowned you long ago, during your mismanagement at VRA, your current management of Ghana@50 activities would have been only a confirmation. I am however, not surprised that even when you were chased out of VRA, you were quietly squatting at the Ministry of Finance as advisor on budget.

But why should I be surprised? After all, when Dr. Richard Anane was chased out of Government by the Commission on Human and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the then President, Mr. Kufuor kept his Ministry of Transport vacant until he orchestrated his return. You cite two stories to illustrate you wish that my best days as an investigative journalist are gone. The first story you referred to, had a by-line, which I believe you saw was not in my name. I am sure you are holding me accountable to the work of my office as the Publisher and the Editor-in-Chief.

I have no qualms with you for holding me accountable for the conduct of my staff. In spite of not being the author of the said story, you cite that as the basis for describing me as suffering from an “unfortunate addiction to lying and being very economical with the truth”. Yet, when you appeared before the Commission of Inquiry (Ghana@50), you refused to take responsibility for your personal conduct and that of your staff who worked under your directives. This is just but one example of your double standards and split personality.

On a story that details how you spent thousands of dollars of Ghanaian taxpayers’ money on yourself, do you think the only response Ghanaians deserve is that you did not visit John’s Salon Moustache to trim your moustache but rather to shave other place? In any case, the documentation that you spent public cash on yourself is included in documents you yourself handed over to the transition team. It also forms part of the documentation on Ghana@50.

I have written about the skeletons of Jubilee toilets you have littered all over the place, for which contractors have not been paid, even though you claim to have a fixation for toilets and sanitation, for which reason you cited public toilets as your first priority under the $20millon allocated to you by government. Even here, you failed!

I watched you in amusement testifying before the Commission and was shocked that you, who have poured tonnes of ink on the pages of newspapers, calling public officials to order, would run with your tail in between your legs, when called upon to account for your stewardship and take responsibility for Ghana@50. Do you remember the things you said about public accountability when you established Radio Eye? That was the fact that earned you the alias Tarzan, which you seem to cherish so much, even as you demonstrate that you have abandoned the principles you claimed to uphold. You are so pitiful. “It wasn’t me”, you told the Commission and a shocked Ghanaian public, when asked what had happened to items you procured or engaged companies to supply at the expense of us taxpayers, and which were to be delivered to various parts of the country.

Not only did you shock me by not owning up for your failures, you even declared what you yourself called a ‘$36-million profit’, only to beat a retreat to say that the amount was a ‘surplus’. My little knowledge of accounts tells me that in actual fact what you presented to a respectable body such as the Commission of Inquiry could not pass for any financial statement worth its sort. You committed the Ghanaian taxpayer to ¢91.7bllion on plastic cups, (i.e. ¢75.6billion plus ¢16.1billion transportation cost). Yet you have the effrontery to deny responsibility for ensuring that the items got to the target beneficiaries but was hold to hold me accountable to a story written by one of my staff.

There is clearly something wrong with your thinking. Yesterday, fire officers looked on helplessly, as the Ministry of foreign affairs building was burnt to ashes because they did not have simple cranes to climb the building to extinguish the fire. I listened to the hopelessness of the Chief Fire Officer as he said, “there is nothing we can do about it; we don’t have the equipment”. Yet you, with all your education, chose to spend all these billions on absolutely useless expeditions, which only but brought profit to your cronies. In fact you never cease to amaze me throughout your ‘macho’ encounter with the Commission.

More especially, I could not help, but burst out laughing when I heard you appeal to the Commission to save you from a date with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). Charles, that is where you belong. You were once Energy Advisor to the Government of Ghana, a former Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority (VRA), former Head of the Venture Capital fund and your last public office was as a Chief Executive of Ghana’s Gold Jubilee project.

I am therefore still trying to make meaning of your response to the Commission to look somewhere else for a letter you claimed appointed you to steer affairs at the Ghana@50 Secretariat. On your claim that I have become “intoxicated by the transient and illusory trappings of proximity to political influence” the least said about it the better. I am happy that you appreciate that no condition is permanent and that political power is but transient. Unfortunately, you and your brother-in-law conducted yourself as if political power was endless. Your boss, Mpiani was always saying, “We have the mandate! We have the mandate!”

You have lived most your adult life albeit unsuccessfully forming a political party, all in an attempt to capture political power. You are the one suffering from illusions that once you own a doctorate degree you are automatically intelligent. I have neither claimed that I am powerful, nor have I claimed to wield political power. Unlike some your favourite journalists, who are too eager to describe you as dazzling, even when the whole nation is angered by your arrogance and ineptitude, I am only an Editor-in-Chief.

Let me however warn you that don’t ever underestimate the power of The Enquirer. You do so at your peril! If I wanted political influence and power, I would have had it on a silver of platter from the most influential people in the past government. Your bosses offered it to me, but I turned it down because of what they expected in return. I have a conscience and I will die for it Thank you.

Yours truly Raymond Archer (Editor-in-chief)