I never tried to bribe Archer - Bartels

Hon Kwamena Bartels, the Interior Minister, has reacted angrily to a newspaper publication by threatening: “I Will Face Raymond Archer the Editor. Some journalists think they have acquired so much power and as such, they can use it against people.”

“I have never tried to bribe Raymond Archer to stop a publication. The lady in question, Vida Tawiah was rather sent to me by Raymond Archer about six weeks ago to collect ten thousand dollars so they would stop a story with a caption “Kwamena Bartels Quits Politics, after 2008, but the Enquirer will soon reveal some of the things he did whilst in office as a Minister.”

About two days ago, the first publication came out with an alleged bribery attempt intended to possibly stop the story from being published.

According to Mr Bartels, Vida was introduced to him as a journalist who lives in his constituency. Then later, she came to his office to tell him about a story that was going to be published by Raymond, so he should give her $10,000 dollars to kill the story.

He said, the money was not given since the lady said the money would be given to a guy who used to work with Raymond. He said, he suspected it was a way to extort money from him so that Raymond would publish the bribery story on Monday. Efforts to reach Raymond Archer for his side of the story have so far proved futile.