Infamous Bribery Allegation And Mystery Tape

PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE NOW INFAMOUS BRIBERY ALLEGATION AND MYSTERY TAPE READ BY HON. SAMUEL OKUDZETO ABLAKWA AT THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION ON MONDAY 8TH AUGUST, 2011

Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the press. Let me start by welcoming you to this press conference.
The past week has witnessed a very sad spectacle where the integrity and intelligence of government, journalists, the Ghana Police Service and the Electoral Commission were brought into question by the New Patriotic Party.

What is even bizarre is that those who hatched the plot and dished out this fabrication thought very lowly of the Ghanaian people as they expected all of us to fall for this very insulting prank.

Ladies and gentlemen,
I refer to the so-called secret tape which the NPP has presented as the voice of my colleague Hon. Baba Jamal. He is alleged to have convened a meeting with journalists where he sought to bribe them with NYEP cash. In the words of the NPP Director of Communications when he addressed the press on Thursday August 4, 2011, Nana Akomea said “Ladies and gentlemen, we have invited you here to bring to your attention the gross abuse of power, corruption, and blatant misuse of public money (NYEP) by the NDC government to buy journalists, starting in the Upper East Region.” Nana Akomea continued with his categorical indictment to state “the aim of this disgraceful corruption and diversion of NYEP funds is so as to get the targeted journalists to slant their reports and stories to favour the NDC government and thus deprive Ghanaians the benefit of fair and accurate reporting from even the state/public media.” He then added, “For whom or which organization will this bribery target next time? The Electoral Commission or the Ghana Police Service?”

Nana Akomea was categorical and conclusive in his indictment of Baba Jamal, Government and the 15 journalists and media houses they work for.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Contrary to the NPP’s assessment of the average intelligence of the Ghanaian, many Ghanaians have since been asking the following fundamental questions:
1) Which bank did those account numbers belong to?
2) How is it possible for 2 journalists; Samuel Akapule of the GNA and Dalulah Nsarebor of the Chronicle to have the same bank account number of 10743-5323/11?
3) How come journalists on the NPP’s bribe list are not corroborating the NPP’s claim?
4) Where, when and at what time did the so-called bribe meeting occur?
5) Which journalists were in this meeting and how come it is so difficult to find just one journalist to confirm that they were in such a meeting?
6) What kind of morally bankrupt government even intending to bribe journalists, would leave a paper trail by wanting it documented with NYEP letters and paying through the banks for even easier exposure?
7) What kind of journalists would agree to receive a monthly bribe of 160 Ghana Cedis through bank accounts with their names and signatures?
8) How does bribing stringers or correspondents necessarily compromise their entire media organization to do the bidding of government?
9) Why would the NPP imagine that the IGP Paul Tawiah Quaye and the Ghana Police Service, Dr. Kwadjo Afari Djan and the Electoral Commission will allow themselves to be bribed by agreeing to be placed on the NYEP and to receive 160 Ghana Cedis a month?

Ladies and Gentlemen, never in our history and in the name of politics has a political party thought so low of all of us like the NPP has done. Nothing can be so despicable and shameful than this sinister bribery plot and the hasty conclusions the NPP Director of Communications came to.

As if to say this insult and the disrespect for the Ghanaian people is not enough, just last Saturday when another colleague of mine, Mr. James Agyenim Boateng sought to ask these basic questions, the response he got from Hon. Nana Akomea is that he James was a “stupid fool”

I must say though that I am not entirely surprised with Nana Akomea’s penchant for insults. Recently, when one of his communicators Mr. John Kumah made very derogatory remarks which no decent tongue can repeat about President Mills and his wife, Nana Akomea refused to condemn John Kumah describing him on Good Morning Ghana of Friday 29th July 2011 as a hero and that if John Kumah managed to be the one who has hurled the worst insult that stopped all insults then John Kumah will have an enviable place in history. I guess he is now in competition with John Kumah to be the hero.

It is worthy of notice that Nana Akomea recently indicated that he sanctioned the rather infamous notice of John Kumah’s Young Patriots that they will engage in the politics of insults and lies and that he had instructed his communicators to hit back at the NDC. Perhaps the current shameful plot also fits into that grand agenda for which that notice was given. Before this particular episode, we recall that Hon. Nana Akomea had peddled an untruth that an NPP publication which referred to a Monkey at the Fiema Monkey Sanctuary as an achievement of the erstwhile NPP government did not emanate from the NPP again categorically stating without a shred of evidence that it was my creation only for Nana Akomea to be proved wrong again.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Government has said time without number that the voice on that mystery tape is not that of Baba Jamal and this fact would not change no matter how hard Nana Akomea and the NPP try. May I take this opportunity to commend the many Ghanaians who have stood up and refused to be taken for granted by openly and loudly insisting that after listening to the infamous tape they are convinced it is not the voice of Baba Jamal.

Very interestingly, after emphatically and conclusively accusing government of bribing journalists and insisting that the voice on the concocted tape is Baba Jamal’s voice when Nana Akomea addressed journalists last Thursday, less than 48 hours after that Nana Akomea on the same Newsfile Programme in which he called Mr. James Agyenim Boateng a “stupid fool” was heard in his submission on this same matter asking Joy FM to get a voice expert to ascertain whose voice it was on the tape. Clearly, as the pack of lies collapse and it becomes more obvious to many Ghanaians that the NPP is sworn to desperately doing anything for political power, Nana Akomea in 48 hours is shifting the goal post and asking the media to get a voice expert to ascertain the truth. What kind of responsible politicking is this? Are these the standards we want in our politics? What stopped Nana Akomea from engaging a voice expert and ascertaining the truth before going public to malign government and destroy the reputations of these young budding journalists whiles bringing them to odium and public ridicule?

Ladies and Gentlemen,
When Baba Jamal was first called by the media for his response, he denied knowledge of the whole matter and stated that it could only be somebody else or a computer manipulated voice. He was at the time aware that a simple Techno phone which is on the market can change and mimic voices with ease. I will now demonstrate. Ladies and Gentlemen, if this simple phone on the market which is not expensive can do this, what can’t other sophisticated voice machines do?

On the issue of bank accounts, first, preliminary investigations we have conducted reveal that no such accounts exist. After persistent pressure that the NPP name which bank these accounts belong to, Nana Akomea last Saturday mentioned on Newsfile that he found out that the bank is the Nara Rural Bank in Bolgatanga. Checks we have conducted at the Nara Rural Bank indicates that no such accounts exist. They have also indicated that it could not be possible for them to assign the same account number to more than one person.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The NYEP through their leadership have stated in absolute terms that there has never been any such scheme where journalists are bribed to make them report favourable stories for the government. Also they do not have these names in their database and that the only name they have from the NPP’s 15 member list is that of Abdulai Issaka who applied to be engaged on the scheme and attached to Metro TV. As you may know, the state through GBC is a co-owner and has shares in Metro TV and so this development is very normal just as under the NPP, NYEP personnel were engaged at GBC for which we saw absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is what explains how come so far only the NYEP Internship Letter of Abdulai Issaka has been made available by the NPP. Again we see another act that cannot be described as impressive and responsible politicking on the part of the NPP when they claim all 15 including journalists working for fully owned private media houses are on a phantom NYEP scheme.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
For the avoidance of doubt, government wishes to emphasise that no government official including Baba Jamal has convened any secret meeting with any group of journalists anywhere in this country. On Baba Jamal’s recent national tour of the regions, he held press conferences in all the ten regional capitals and openly engaged journalists. At no time did he have any secret meeting with any group of journalist anywhere.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The calls for a full blown investigation into this saga are paramount and government is in total agreement. Today it is allegedly Baba Jamal’s voice and 15 journalists in the Upper East Region. Tomorrow it might be the President and 30 Journalists in the Greater Accra Region probably featuring a lot of you here.

We must not lose sight of the fact that there are criminal dimensions to this matter. This has to do with the concocted voice recording and forged bank accounts. This ministry has already referred the matter to the appropriate State Agency, thus the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to investigate. Indeed the National Security Council Secretariat has also written to Baba Jamal for his comments on the matter. He is responding to their call today. He has also petitioned the IGP through his lawyers to institute criminal investigations into this matter. We hope when the security agencies proceed with their work, it will not be seen as political persecution but as a matter of immense national interest for which the truth must be known and the criminals exposed and dealt with according to law.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Government also welcomes the call by a section of the public that the Ghana Journalist Association and the National Media Commission investigates this matter and wish to use this medium to commend the GJA for already initiating investigations. It is my hope that they make their findings public so as to clear the names or otherwise of these budding young journalists whiles ensuring that this cowardly attack on the noble profession of journalism is exposed.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the light of all these and the fact that weeks after this plot was hatched, the NPP has been unable to give concrete evidence of any meeting involving Baba Jamal but has rather been embarrassed by their initial position culminating in strategic backtracking by Nana Akomea and the NPP from their initial emphatic position that the voice on that tape is Baba Jamal and that “gross abuse of power, corruption, and blatant misuse of public money (NYEP) by the NDC government to buy journalists, starting in the Upper East Region” has occurred, I wish to call on the NPP and Nana Akomea who made those categorical statements about government’s culpability to do the honourable thing by retracting and apologizing to government and the 15 journalists in the Upper East Region especially as we all seem to have come to the conclusion that we must await the outcome of on-going investigations.

It is government’s hope also that media houses who have falling for this prank and continue to air the said concocted material be minded to desist and to also do the honourable thing.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The attempt to attack the integrity and credibility of Ministers in the Information Ministry appears to be a key part of an orchestration to “destroy the messenger so that the message he brings will have no effect.” This sinister agenda was first employed against my good self when I was reported to have bought a house in Texas, America. The next was my Boss Hon. John Tia Akologu who was reported to have built a 20 bedroom flat at Tema and another story that he stole from an orphan. All of these turned out to be blatant falsehoods even as I remain in court over the allegations against my person in the phantom Texas house purchase. Now it is the turn of Hon. Baba Jamal. We have no doubt that all these machinations will fail as Good will always triumph over evil.

Ladies and gentlemen,
It is important to emphasise that the government of President John Evans Atta Mills will never seek to compromise journalists. We will not take the Ghanaian people for a ride with the mentality that one can replace hardworking efforts at seeking their welfare and building a better Ghana with criminal and disgraceful ploys to engage the media to paint an illusionary picture. In the final analysis such ploys do not stand the test of time as it only exposes such governments and their hirelings. We take the good people of Ghana more serious than that. We would continue to respect journalists and uphold the dignity of their profession. Never will we hatch any scheme to unethically and immorally influence journalists neither will we engage in acts that undermine and subject journalists to disgrace and public ridicule.

Finally, government expresses its sympathies to the journalists in the Upper East Region and all journalists who obviously have felt abused, humiliated and traumatized by this orchestration. We ask that you remain committed to your calling and consider this development as an occupational hazard even as government continues to work around the clock to ensure that we deepen the respect and independence of the media as enshrined in Chapter 12 of the 1992 Constitution.

I thank you. You may now ask questions.