Deputy BOST boss caught with dubious passport

The Deputy Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST), has altered his age, cutting it down by three years, just to remain in public office, The Herald, has discovered.

This paper, followed up his driver’s license presented to the La Motor Court, after he was charged with driving at the wrong side of the road, misuse of the siren and causing danger to other road users, claiming he had the authority of National Security to do so.

When the paper confronted Moses Mensah Assem with the facts yesterday he fled. He had initially claimed his true date of birth, can be verified from his passport, but dropped the phone call in total shock when it was put to him that what is in the passport, doesn’t tally with what he had given to the Electoral Commission (EC) over 10 years ago, when he contested the North Tongu Parliamentary seat on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

According to details of documents available to this paper, but for his decision to tamper with his age, Mr. Assem, would have retired last year, as he hit the compulsory 60-years retirement age.

But Mr. Mensah’s May 28, 2019, biometric passport issued at the Passport Office, puts his age at 57, however, other information which is in the public space, already says he is currently 60 years and will turn 61 on November 2019.

This comes at a time a Deputy MD of GCB-Bank, Samuel Amankwah, was also caught in a similar manner a few weeks ago, by The Herald, as having changed his date of birth multiple times.

Currently, per the GCB’s records, the Deputy MD is 59-years of age, but two other documents, namely his biometric Ghanaian passport and SSNIT card, expose him to be 63 and 64 respectively.

He is still at post, while actively leading the dismissal of junior staff of GCB on the pretext of scoring low grades in their English and Mathematics at the SSSCE, although they were not employed by the bank under the previous management on their SSSCE, but on the University and HND degrees.

In the case of the Deputy BOST MD, he was once the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of North Tongu in the Volta Region under the erstwhile John Kufuor administration.

The Chartered Accountant before serving as MCE, worked with the Christian Microfinance company.

He was also the governing NPP parliamentary candidate for North Tongu during the 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections.

At the time of contesting that election which he obviously failed to clinch victory from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), he was 50 according to the EC’s records available to The Herald.

But efforts to get his Social Security and National Insurance Trust records blank. The closest connection to him was his May 28, birthday.

Last month, Moses Assem, was arrested for using a siren in his V8 to beat traffic on the Dawenya highway.

He also did not have a license. In his defense, however, he told the Police he had clearance from National Security, although he was unable to provide evidence to that effect.

He pleaded with the Police to let him go with the excuse that he had the donations to a funeral he was attending on him hence his use of siren to beat traffic.

Moses Assem and the 29 other errant drivers arrested, were en route to funerals.

The Dawenya highway has been prone to jams largely due to the heavy volumes of traffic on the international road. Drivers have resorted to using the shoulders of the road while influential ones like Moses Assem use their sirens to manoeuvre their way through.

The Deputy Managing Director of BOST was slapped with a fine of Ghc720 by the La Motor Court, for driving at the wrong side, misuse of a siren and causing danger to other road users.

Mr. Assem, who had earlier failed to show up in court as all the culprits were put before the Tema Sanitation and Motor court, however, had a charger of driving without license dropped after he produced a license in court forcing the court to quash that charge.

H was arrested as part of Citi TV’s War Against Indiscipline campaign in the country.

After several attempts to get Mr. Assem on his two phones on whether or not the multiple age claim was true, proved futile last week, his WhatsApp line went through finally yesterday.

When the question of his age was put to him, he hesitantly questioned if that was important, as it has no correlation with his work as deputy MD of BOST.

He initially registered his displeasure about a publication this paper sourced from CITI FM and asked what is wrong with his being sent to court for breaking a road traffic law, got to do with his age?

To him, it was someone that was pushing an agenda and feeding this paper with information about his age, which he indicated were unnecessary in his view.

When this paper tried to push further, telling him how EC document shows that he wanted to become MP in 2008 and that he couldn’t have been younger than 60 as his new passport vividly says, the WhatsApp call dropped.

All attempts to get him back on the phone were unsuccessful as his phone rang many times without an answer.

“So, Larry, you see sometimes, some of these things, The Herald published something the last time that I didn’t attend court meanwhile the guy from Citi news, who was reporting that didn’t go to court to see whether my name has been listed in court and then to my surprise The Herald picked it up and published it. So all this what has that got to do with my age…what has that got to do? I have my passport, I have my age inside, I mean I look at them as issues we should not waste time on but maybe you may agree or may not agree with me.

Larry, if you come to my passport, my age is in my passport. Before a passport is issued, my birth certificate…I don’t know why somebody just wants to make a case on age? What has that got to do with our work? Whoever told you, you said somebody told, somebody who gave you information that oh this is the age, what has that go to do with the work we are to do?”

It was quickly put to him that he had submitted a driver’s license to the court when he appeared and that the DVLA is a place where data is captured. The Passport office has his data as well but information from the two sources do not tally with his data at Electoral Commission submitted nine years ago, when he contested the North Tongu parliamentary seat on the ticket of the NPP, he dropped the phone call and would not a response to subsequent calls.

EC files available to The Herald reveals that Moses Mensah Assem, had taken part in that election with Charles Sename Hodugey of the NDC, Eunice Mordey of the DFP and Emmanuel Yaovi Bobobee of the CPP.

Mr. Assem has obtained 14.0 per cent of the total votes cast, while Mr. Hodugbey got 78.6 per cent, Mr. Bobobee, obtained 7.0 per cent and Eunice Mordey had a paltry 0.5 per cent.