The President must wake up! – Kweku Baako fires

Journalist Abdul Kweku Baako says the presidency must resist the temptation to protect members of government caught up in alleged corrupt conduct documented by private investigations company TigerEye PI.

“I am telling the President, they should wake up”, he said while drawing attention to what he observed are attempts within government to shield the secretary of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCM) who has been implicated in corruption investigations.

The secretary, Charles Cromwell Bissue, was captured in a video taking monies from a Tiger Eye operative posing as a businessman.

Charles Bissiu allegedly took 35,000 cedis in the course of three meeting to circumvent measures to curb illegal mining.

Mr Bissiu has been accused by Anas of abusing his office, breaching his fiduciary duties, engaging in bribery and corruption which he said were uncovered by way of hard facts, captured on audio/visual recording, and electronic correspondence.

Since the broadcast of the investigative video on February 27, 2019, Bissiu who is primarily a presidential staffer has announced, he has stepped aside as secretary to the IMCM. He has denied allegations and submitted to police investigations.

Tiger Eye PI, the investigative vehicle formed and used by award-winning journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas has petitioned the Office of the Special Prosecutor to investigative allegations of bribery and corruption.

He has also supplied raw footage of the investigations to the OSP. Despite ongoing investigations at OSP, the IMCM has asked the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service to investigate the allegations of corruption and officials implicated in the video.

The implicated secretary has also taken to social media asking Tiger Eye PI and Anas Aremeyaw Anas to provide the CID with the ‘raw unedited footages’.

Some pro-NPP sections on social media have also shared posts suggesting Anas Aremeyaw Anas has failed to supply government with raw tapes even though Information Minister has said government has made no such request.

The Information minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah had said, following the broadcast of the documentary, that government would an investigation into the revelations of the documentary. But his press conference on the latest investigations was misreported.

Kweku Baako, irked by happenings, described IMCM’s request for CID investigations “absolute nonsense”.

“Why do we want to duplicate issues?”, he charged on Asempa FM’s ‘Ekosii Sen’ Monday and questioned the motive of the IMCM in “ignoring” the Office of the Special Prosecutor.

“Why are they ignoring where the complainant has gone to? Is there a certain motive?”, he said and noted the tactic of the IMCM is to ‘choose the territory to have the battle”.

“Why are they all consciously ignoring that option? Why do you ignore the OSP and choose the CID”? he wondered and indicated he expected the illegal mining committee to first and foremost deal with the OSP.

“What stopped the IMMC from writing to the SP? “Why not copy the SP?”, he repeated questions, expressing disappointment with the IMCM.

He accused the Committee of being part of the problem it is supposed to address and fired at the committee for playing games which “don’t help government”.

Baako called the CID investigations “a waste of time” and the IMCM invitation to the CID to investigate the matter a “disrespect to the process that has been initiated”

“I advise this government, there is no need sometimes to attract needless collateral damage when individuals you appoint misbehave. Let them fight their own fight”.

Kweku Baako expressed regret that some members of government’s social media team are trying to undermine Anas’s efforts at punishing implicated officials.