Martin Amidu is 'palpably wrong' – Gov't

The Government of Ghana has denied claims by former Attorney General Martin Amidu that the recent corruption exposé by investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas was commissioned by the Mills administration.

“Martin Amidu is palpably wrong…In a way, I have pity for him,” Minister of Communication Dr. Edward Omane Boamah told Kojo Yankson on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Tuesday.

Dr. Boamah said Mr. Amidu should not force the Government to take credit that belongs to Tiger Eye P.I., adding that there was no collaboration between the Government and Mr. Anas as suggested by the ‘Citizen Vigilante.' According to him, Mr. Anas does his work undercover and anytime there is any such collaboration between him and the Government, officialdom makes it public, as President John Mills (late) did in the past concerning Anas’ investigations at the Tema Harbour.

Mr. Amidu, in a statement issued Monday accused the Government of attempting to suppress portions of Anas Aremeyaw Anas’ recent corruption exposé, which he said did not capture only judicial corruption, as has been put out in the public domain, but also legislative corruption, which he alleges officialdom is attempting to conceal. Dr. Omane Boamah, however, denied that allegation too.

In Mr. Amidu’s statement, he alleged the Government commissioned the investigative journalist and his Tiger Eye P.I. to investigate the judiciary, as a result of bad blood between the judiciary and the Executive.

“I have said that the undercover investigation that led to the judicial corruption expose was commissioned by the Government of Ghana and has its genesis in the acrimonious relationship between the Government and the Judiciary on the assumption of power in 2009 by the Government and the constant demand by the Judiciary for proof of judicial corruption from Government and its associates,” Mr. Amidu said in a statement issued Monday, November 9.

“I was Presidential Advisor on Legal Affairs in the second half of 2009; I was Minister for the Interior in 2010, and the Attorney General in 2011 before I left office in 2012. I therefore know what I am talking about,” he asserted.

“Let the judiciary be exposed but it is unjust to hide the other evidence of corruption obtained by the same anti-corruptionpreneurs. He who comes to equity must come with clean hands,” Mr. Amidu noted.

Anas’ two-year investigation exposed 34 judges of the Magistrates’ and High courts receiving bribes to warp justice. The Chief Justice has launched a probe into the whole affair.

“What I did not know was that the method of exposing corruption in the judiciary and parliament was going to be through commissioning covert anti-corruptionpreneurs as government agents (to secretly collaborate with established security agencies) to allow for possible deniability. But I do not think that the late President Mills intended to suppress the results of the Parliamentary corruption investigation by compromising it and using only the results of the judicial corruption investigations to damnify the judiciary knowing quite well that whatever results to be obtained will only be the tip of the iceberg,” Amidu said.

He added: “Unfortunately, Prof. Mills died before his commission could be fulfilled and his successor, John Dramani Mahama, has chosen to use the results selectively and to suppress other results, particularly the parliamentary one whose video is ready, available to the Government and has with its permission been viewed secretly by the leadership of one branch of Government which is pleased to participate in the criminal conspiracy and unconstitutional conduct of suppressing it from the public to protect its image. I refuse to condone such conduct and write in exercise of my right to freedom of speech and to defend the Constitution under Article 3 thereof.”

He said: “The Government ought to be congratulated for its ingenuity in being able to suppress part of the truth and to turn the displeasure of public anger away from political corruption to only judicial corruption and to take all the credit.

“The ingenuity, however, becomes farcical when the Attorney General grants immunity and protection to entrepreneurial Government Commissioned undercover agents who collaborate with established security agencies as independent whistleblowers under the Whistleblowers Act, 2006 (Act 720) and contrary to the prohibition of the Police Service (Private Security Organizations) Regulations, 1992 (L.I. 1571).

“Truth will always stand no matter how long it takes for it to come to light. Already tongues are wagging like mine because a secret ceases to be a secret when it is between more than two persons let alone when you announced it to a multitude at a closed-door meeting. It is therefore in the interest of the integrity of the petitioners to ensure that the wishes of the late Prof. Mills are carried out to the full before providence reveals them as a for-profit anti-corruptionprenuers (collaborating with established security agencies) without any integrity themselves. “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion." An anticorruption activist or journalist must be a man of the highest integrity himself! He cannot be a government agent under any excuse!” he said.