Investigative journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has praised Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa for opening his ministry’s records to scrutiny over the evacuation of 1,964 Ghanaians from South Africa, while warning that discrepancies uncovered by JoyNews Research must be thoroughly investigated.

In a Facebook post titled “Ablakwa’s Transparency, JoyNews Factcheck and NPP’s Politics,” Manasseh described the ministry’s decision to voluntarily provide documents to JoyNews as an example of the transparency expected from public institutions. However, he cautioned that the disclosure should not be taken as proof that every aspect of the evacuation expenditure was free of irregularities.

The controversy follows a JoyNews Research review of records relating to the evacuation of Ghanaians amid xenophobic attacks in South Africa. According to Manasseh, the team identified discrepancies involving 100 of the 1,964 evacuees whose names and signatures it examined.

The reported inconsistencies included instances in which some names appeared more than once with different signatures, some evacuees received the GH¢5,000 reintegration allowance but apparently did not receive the GH¢500 transport allowance, and others claimed the money in their envelopes fell short of the expected GH¢5,000.

Manasseh stressed, however, that the discrepancies do not automatically establish fraud or embezzlement, outlining three possible explanations: genuine clerical errors, misinterpretation of the records and actual wrongdoing by individuals involved in the evacuation process.

Manasseh contrasts Ablakwa’s disclosure with Akufo-Addo’s presidency

The journalist drew a comparison between the current controversy and his unsuccessful attempt to obtain information about former President Nana Akufo-Addo’s private jet rentals and overseas trips.

He said he submitted a Right to Information (RTI) request to the Office of the President in December 2021, seeking details of the president’s trips between May and September that year, including the cost to the state and how the private jet services had been procured.

According to Manasseh, the presidency refused to release the information on security grounds. He subsequently petitioned the Right to Information Commission, which ruled in favour of the presidency in June 2022.

He questioned the justification for the refusal, noting that the same presidency later published details of Akufo-Addo’s ongoing trip to Belgium and Rwanda after then-North Tongu MP Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa raised concerns about the president’s use of a chartered flight to Germany.

Manasseh said the contrast was particularly significant because Ablakwa, who had repeatedly demanded accountability from the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration, now leads the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Unlike the response he received from the Akufo-Addo administration, he argued, the current ministry had taken the initiative to make documents available to journalists investigating the evacuation expenditure.

He said the ministry provided JoyNews Research with receipts, invoices, lists of evacuees, signed payment sheets and other records without waiting for the research team to submit a formal RTI application.

“In my decade and a half as a journalist in Ghana, I have not seen this level of honest and proactive disclosure by a state agency or government officials in aid of accountability,” he wrote, describing the approach as a standard public institutions should emulate.

JoyNews flags discrepancies in evacuation records

The reported discrepancies have raised questions about the administration of the financial support provided to the evacuees.

According to Manasseh, some records contained duplicate names with different signatures, while other entries suggested that certain individuals may not have received both allowances. Some evacuees also reportedly said the amount they counted from their envelopes was less than GH¢5,000.

He cited an example of apparent clerical errors involving passport expiration dates that had been entered as dates of birth, creating the impression that some evacuees would be born in the future.

Such errors, he argued, could account for some of the anomalies identified during the review.

Manasseh also questioned whether discrepancies concerning hotel accommodation necessarily indicated wrongdoing. Referring to discussions on the Newsfile programme, he said some evacuees reportedly slept in buses rather than hotels, despite accommodation costs appearing in the expenditure breakdown.

He cited a reported hotel accommodation figure of GH¢142,000, which he estimated could cover about 200 people at an assumed rate of US$60 per person.

For that reason, he argued, the fact that some evacuees did not stay in hotels would not, by itself, establish that funds had been misappropriated.

However, he warned that the possibility of deliberate wrongdoing could not be dismissed, particularly if individuals responsible for different aspects of the exercise manipulated records or diverted funds.

“The third possibility is actual wrongdoing or embezzlement,” he wrote, insisting that the findings from JoyNews Research deserved serious attention.

‘He did not work with 'angels'— Manasseh questions Ablakwa’s assurance

While commending the minister’s decision to open the records to scrutiny, Manasseh questioned Ablakwa’s categorical assurance that there were no ghost names and that every evacuee had received the full GH¢5,500 in allowances.

He argued that the minister might have discharged his responsibilities honestly without necessarily having direct knowledge of every transaction carried out by the officials who handled registration, payments and the distribution of cash.

“He was not the one who counted the money in the envelopes that were handed over to the evacuees. He was not the one who issued the registration forms and took the signatures of the evacuees. And he did not work with angels,” Manasseh wrote.

He added that the minister should have acknowledged the possibility of human error or dishonest conduct by some of the officials involved, even if he was personally certain that he had not taken any money.

The journalist's position was that transparency should not end with the publication of documents. Rather, the information disclosed must be independently checked, and any discrepancies must be resolved.

Foreign Affairs Ministry invites JoyNews to submit findings

Manasseh said the Foreign Affairs Ministry had invited JoyNews to submit its findings for further investigation, adding that the ministry considered the allegations serious and was open to examining them.

He urged the relevant authorities to pursue every credible lead and establish whether the discrepancies resulted from administrative mistakes, errors in interpreting the records or deliberate financial misconduct.

“Any pesewa that went into the wrong pocket is serious enough to be tracked,” he wrote.

He maintained that the release of the underlying records had created an opportunity for journalists and investigators to scrutinise the payments and potentially identify anyone who had abused the process.

The allegations and reported discrepancies do not, on their own, establish that any official stole money. A definitive conclusion would require further investigation and verification of the relevant payment records and testimony from the affected evacuees.

Manasseh challenges NPP to uphold the same standard

The journalist also turned his attention to the NPP minority, which has demanded accountability over the evacuation expenditure.

Although he acknowledged that the party’s demands could be influenced by political considerations, he said the standard of scrutiny being applied to Ablakwa and his ministry should also be upheld if the NPP returns to power.

He warned that politicians who demand transparency while in opposition must be prepared to offer the same level of openness when they assume public office.

Manasseh said the current controversy should not overshadow the importance of the ministry’s willingness to release information, even if subsequent investigations were to implicate the minister himself.

“Transparency is the first step of accountability,” he wrote.

He argued that the ministry’s disclosure should be recognised as an example of openness in public administration, while stressing that no individual should be shielded from scrutiny if evidence of wrongdoing emerges.

The central question, therefore, is whether the discrepancies identified by JoyNews Research can be explained by administrative errors or whether further investigation will uncover financial irregularities in the evacuation exercise.

FULL FACEBOOK POST BY MANASSEH AZURE AWUNI

ABLAKWA’S TRANSPARENCY, JOYNEWS FACTCHECK AND NPP’S POLITICS

In December 2021, I submitted a right to information (RTI) request to the Office of the President on President Akufo-Addo’s past trips (May to September 2021) and private jet rentals. The main information I wanted was how much the state had spent on those trips and how the services of the private jets were procured. The presidency denied me the information, citing security concerns. Dissatisfied, I petitioned the RTI Commission, which ruled in favour of the presidency in June 2022. That effectively ended my quest for accountability on how the state spent the money.

I had no doubt in my mind that the presidency was running away from accountability because, in June 2022, the same office that cited security reasons for denying me information on the cost of Akufo-Addo’s PAST trips published a full itinerary of the president’s ongoing trip to Belgium and Rwanda. The presidency released information on which airlines and flights the president used and would be using after Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa alleged that Akufo-Addo’s trip to Germany was by a chartered flight.

Today, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, who held the NPP administration’s feet to the flaming fire of accountability and scrutiny, is the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The NPP is demanding information on the cost and details of expenditure in evacuating the 1,964 Ghanaians from South Africa in the wake of the xenophobic attacks.

Unlike many politicians who preach transparency in opposition and practice opacity in government, Mr Ablakwa has gone all out to provide extensive details of the evacuation, including names of all the people evacuated, their phone numbers and other details such as their passport information, the sheet on which all the evacuees signed for the 5000 cedis resettlement allowance and the 500 cedis transport allowance.

When the Research Desk of JoyNews began its analysis, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, without waiting for JoyNews to apply, volunteered information and data such as receipts, names, and signed sheets of evacuees, as well as invoices covering the evacuation.

In my decade and a half as a journalist in Ghana, I have not seen this level of honest and proactive disclosure by a state agency or government officials in aid of accountability. This is the gold standard that public offices and officials should emulate.

Okudzeto Ablakwa and the Foreign Affairs Ministry could have sought refuge from accountability by hiding behind the RTI law's exemption clauses and refused some disclosures because they concerned people’s private information. That refusal would have been more grounded and reasonable than the cost of the private jet rentals I sought from the Akufo-Addo regime.

The extent of the disclosure pointed to a major conclusion: that the minister had nothing to hide or knew not of anything that needed to be hidden. If money is involved and every person who signed for the money, along with their phone numbers and details, is handed over to the media for verification and scrutiny, only an idiot would give that information if they stole the funds and signed in the people’s names.

After a diligent scrutiny, JoyNews Research found discrepancies with 100 out of the 1964 evacuees whose names and signatures the team perused. Some people on this list of 100 appeared twice but with different signatures; some received the 5000 reintegration cedis but did not receive the 500 cedis transportation allowance, while some reported that the money they counted from the envelopes was not up to the 5000 cedis. (I have seen videos in which ministry officials announced the packages openly to evacuees at the airport and said everyone was receiving the same amount. And I wonder whether these people complained when they counted and realised that their envelopes fell short of the 5000 cedis)

The discrepancies detected could result from three possibilities.

The first could be genuine clerical errors. For instance, some people’s passport expiration dates were entered as their birth dates, leading to the news that some evacuees would be born in the future.

The second could result from misinterpretation by those evaluating the anomalies. For instance, it emerged on Newsfile last Saturday that some evacuees had slept in buses and not in hotels, as provided for in the expenditure breakdown. When the figure for hotel accommodation was given as 142,000 cedis, I realised that that amount (about $12,000) could only accommodate 200 people, if each person’s hotel accommodation cost $60 dollars. So, it’s not a scandal if some people among the 1,964 evacuees did not sleep in hotels.

The third possibility is actual wrongdoing or embezzlement. It is possible that some people within the ministry who handled the different aspects of the evacuation could have used dubious means to cheat the process and make money. This is why the JoyNews findings should be given the needed attention.

That is why Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa’s categorical statement that there wasn’t a single ghost name or a single person who did not receive the 5,500 cedis was problematic. The minister may have honestly discharged his duty, but he was not the one who handled the nitty-gritty of the process. He was not the one who counted the money in the envelopes that were handed over to the evacuees. He was not the one who issued the registration forms and took the signatures of the evacuees. And he did not work with angels. In his presentation, the minister should have made room for some margins of error or the possibility of dishonest appropriation by some of the many who handled the process, even if he was sure he didn’t touch a pesewa.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry has invited JoyNews to furnish it with its findings for further investigation. The Ministry says it finds the allegations serious and is open to investigating them.

Any pesewa that went into the wrong pocket is serious enough to be tracked. If someone stole money thinking the raw data would never be released, the Foreign Affairs Ministry's commendable transparency and JoyNews Research's diligent scrutiny and subsequent flagging could expose the wrongdoers.

The NPP minority’s call for accountability is too loud to miss. It may be politics as usual, but some of us are taking note. We will remind a future NPP administration and its officials leading the charge today to live up to Ablakwa and the Foreign Affairs Ministry’s standard of transparency.

Transparency is the first step of accountability. Even if the minister himself is implicated in this evacuation scrutiny, it should not wash away the exemplary manner in which the ministry opened itself up to scrutiny.

EA