ET Mensah For Fast Track Court

Former National Democratic Congress (NDC) Youth and Sports Minister Enoch Teye Mensah will soon appear before one of the judges of the Fast Track High Court in Accra.

According to the Heritage newspaper the ex-Minister, popularly known as E.T., will be engaged in a herculean battle to clear his good name. Mr. Mensah, who is the sitting MP for Ningo-Prampram in the Greater Accra Region, will petition the Court over reports in a widely-circulated book, "The Amazing Dictator And His Men", that he was a Presidential barber.

Mr. Mensah told The Heritage that he has accordingly advised his lawyers to file a suit against the author of the publication because "I have never been a Presidential barber."

Mr. Alex Akuffo, who authored the book, "The Amazing Dictator And His Men" under the pen name "John Westwood", described the former Minister as "Itinerant Choirmaster and Presidential barber" during the two decades of the Rawlings regime. In an interview last weekend, Mr. Mensah said he was getting fed up with the perception that he was ex-President Rawlings' personal barber.

"Rawlings is not my friend, he is my boss", said an obviously angry E.T. Continuing, he said he was a senior officer at the University of Ghana before taking up a ministerial appointment, querying: "does that mean I was the Vice-Chancellor's barber?" He added: "It is unfortunate people create the impression that Mr. Rawlings appointed me Minister because I am his friend or barber."

Mr. Mensah, one of a handful of Ministers to have served the same Ministry for over a decade in Ghana's history, said if indeed ex-President Rawlings "was appointing his friends to government…. then he should have appointed his soldier friends because he was close to them."

He further noted that the fact that he achieved many laurels and medals for Ghana Sports.