General News of Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Source: Ghanaian Telegraph

Where is the Tehoda cocaine report?

DSP Gifty Mawuenyega Tehoda DSP Gifty Mawuenyega Tehoda

Question, murmurs and commentaries, mostly negative, are coming in fast and thick over the whereabouts of the report of the committee that was set up by then Minister of Interior, William Kwasi Aboah, to probe into the petition by DSP Gifty Tehoda, the beleaguered police officer in the centre of the cocaine turn-soda, which implicated the Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) COP Vincent Dedzoe.

Almost a year after the committee was set up to investigate the allegations that were made by the Police Officer, which implicated the Deputy CID boss, the report of the committee has been left to gather dust at the Ministry of Interior.

The ‘Ghanaian Telegraph’ gathered that till date, none of the parties that were either named or queried by the committee is privy to the recommendations of the committee; a situation that has left the parties still groping as to what their fate would be.

Worst still, the Ministry has not taken steps to implement the recommendations of the committee, but intelligence gathered reveals that even at the Ministry of Interior, frantic efforts are being made by some faceless individuals, to have the report doctored to favour a particular Police Officer.

According to insiders at the Interior Ministry, a Director at the Ministry (name withheld), not happy with the recommendations by the committee allegedly gave the report back to some members of the committee to see if there was any means they could affect changes to make their recommendations mild but, this was fiercely resisted by the police officer who was directed to, make the changes.

Now DSP Tehoda is in court over the way her matter has been handled by the Police, but the Deputy CID boss has been on interdiction since the committee commenced its work and has not had the opportunity to either go to the court or address the issues therein.

Our checks at the Interior Ministry to see how far the report has gone proved futile as officials are tight-hipped on the fate of the report.

It would be recalled that the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) implicated the former deputy head of the police commercial crime unit in the circumstance that led to the swapping of 120 kilos of cocaine exhibits, which formed the basis for the trial of one Nana Ama Martin by an Accra court.

Following the report by the BNI, the police service summarily dismissed Tehoda from the Service. She, aside fighting the police service in court, petitioned the president, John Dramani Mahama, where she made some damning revelation and allegations against the then Deputy Director of CID, Vincent Dedzoe.

It was the committee that was set up to probe the allegations by the DSP that has sent his report to the Ministry which has been kept in the dust room of the Ministry.

Story still developing.