Hotel Manager breaks silence on secret tape

The Chief Executive Officer of Oyinka Hotel in Koforidua, Gyebi Donkor, has dissociated the hotel from the leaked tape containing alleged tribal remarks made by former Finance Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo.

The CEO in an interview with DAILY GUIDE confirmed that the meeting was held at the hotel on January 29, 2015 but said it was a closed-door meeting attended by only members of the New Patriotic Party. He therefore stated that allegations made on radio that his workers at the hotel may have been used as conduit to secretly record what transpired at the meeting and sent it to the NDC was completely false.

A secretly recorded audio tape went viral on both social media and on radio, capturing a male voice similar to that of the former finance minister complaining that even though about 90 percent of Ghana’s natural resources are concentrated in mainly Akan-speaking regions of the country, it is people who come from regions without resources who are governing the country.

The tape was apparently secretly recorded at a meeting of the NPP’s Council of Elders in the Eastern Region, chaired by Mr Osafo Maafo.

The voice, which mostly spoke Twi but punctuated the delivery with bits of English, bemoaned the fact that Akan-speaking people, whose regions are rich with natural resources, had been relegated to the background in the governance of the nation.

DAILY GUIDE’s sources gathered that a staff of the hotel was contracted by some NDC bigwigs to record the NPP Council of Elders’ meeting at the hotel. The hotel’s director, in a reaction, has debunked this allegation and stated that his workers are young and can never engage in any contract with someone to record meeting activities, adding that staff of the hotel, both management and ordinary staff, have no hand in the leaked tape saga.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports currently making the rounds indicate that an NPP member among the Council of Elders might have recorded the former Finance Minister and sent it to the NDC.

Osafo Maafo Responds The former minister has since denied the contents of the tape, saying that it was doctored.

A statement from his camp stated: “Our attention has been drawn to an alleged tape recording of a meeting in Koforidua held on 29th January, 2015.

“At this meeting Hon Yaw Osafo Maafo made several remarks on the state of the Ghanaian economy, on political strategy and on economic and political empowerment.

“Subsequently, some of his remarks have been distorted as advocating tribal or ethnic sentiments, trying to create the impression that he is a tribalist. In all his public life, he has striven to do what is right for Ghana and not for any sectional interest.”

The statement added that the tape purported to be a recording of his voice was doctored, mischievously re-arranged and pieced together using modern technology to create a false impression.

The statement further noted that the release of this doctored tape was a desperate attempt to divert the attention of Ghanaians from the real problems facing Ghana – widespread corruption, rising levels of unemployment, economic hardships and mismanagement of the economy.