Seasoned Ghanaian journalist, Paul Adom Otchere, has punched gaping holes in the latest documentary piece by investigative reporter, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, the “Galamsey Economy”.
Mr. Adom-Otchere could not fathom the rationale behind entrapping people – the modus operandi of the Tiger Eye P.I investigations — just to dent their hard-earned reputation.
The Galamsey Economy exposes the handlers who cut deals at the expense of the state. The documentary shames persons making Ghana unattractive for investment, their modus operandi, and where they operate.
The Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance, Charles Adu Boahen allegedly asked an investor to pay a $200,000 appearance fee to enable a meeting between him and the Vice President.
He allegedly also advised the undercover investor to promise the Vice President that he would employ some of his relatives in order for his investment to begin sooner.
During an editorial on Good Evening Ghana, Tuesday, Mr. Adom Otchere said fighting corruption with such methodology is unright and dishonorable.
“People are looking for either conflict of interest or are looking to find people who are making money off their work in a manner which is immoral or illegal and that is detrimental to the interest of the Ghanaian taxpayer or the Ghanaian worker or however you look at it.”
“That worries me that people can sit down and make a decision like that. Okay, we didn’t get this one, let’s try and tell him we have some money for him. I’m not sure this is something to do. I’m not sure this is something a good man or woman would like to do,” Paul Adom Otchere noted.
“If people are stealing public money, by all means, we have to catch them all the time. We can find out if they balance the budget and it doesn’t balance whatever comes to Parliament, the transparency, or the Finance and Economic Committee. I mean the transparency of the work of Parliament – settle and ad hoc committees and can all the time bring us to the conclusion that person A or person Y has offended the state,” he argued.
He wondered why the Tiger Eye P. I remain silent on persons who pass the test, instead of heaping praises on them.
“Should we be doing this as a country? I don’t even get it. Should we endanger facilitate and encourage this kind of; way and how we find corruption? I’m not sure we should do that. I don’t know how many countries do that. But if we call Ghana our happy home and people are working and we want to find how corrupt they are, we should find it but this way of go and give.. And this way happens all the time,” he said during the editorial segment.
Narrating a similar entrapment incident on Good Evening Ghana on Metro TV show, Mr. Adom Otchere stated categorically that it is unacceptable and must be condemned
The broadcaster also the timing of the investigative report suggests Tiger Eye P. I had an ulterior motive and that the documentary wasn’t about corruption anymore or the moral high ground of finding corruption to support Ghana but a personal vendetta.
“If Charles Adu Boahen had resisted in the first time why was there a need to insist on giving him money so that it would be filmed? It is true Ken Ofori-Atta was approached? If those investigators approached our Finance Minister in an attempt to test him for corruption I think that it is very dishonorable,” he averred.
By: Bernard Ralph Adams | Metrotvonline.com | Ghana
