The Ghana High Commission in Ottawa Saga: The Real Truth

A story posted on the “Rumour Mill” section of Ghanaweb of Wednesday November 21, 2007 had a screaming bold headline: Maltreatment At The Ghana High Commission In Ottawa.

As someone with inside information of what goes on in some of Ghana’s Missions abroad and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Accra, I wish to state the following facts as I know them. Readers, the government of Ghana, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ghanaian general public are invited to read the posting on the “Rumour Mill” and this piece, form their own opinions and hopefully the appropriate authority will be compelled to take action or be forced by Ghanaian public opinion and the interest of Ghana to take action. To start with, there is one fact that is true in the “Rumour Mill posting”. The cook that was previously employed at the residence of the Ghana High Commissioner in Ottawa, the 29 year-old Samuel Amponsah, is no more in her service. He has absconded and claimed refugee status with Citizenship and Immigration Canada. He was brought over from Ghana to Canada in October 2006 by the High Commissioner, Dr. Amoakohene.

The following are the sequence of events based on my insider information gleaned from the records of the Ghana High Commission which one of the staff kindly supplied and other correspondence I obtained from the Minister’s office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Accra.

Dr. (Mrs) Margaret Ivy Amoakohene arrived in Canada in May 2006 as Ghana’s High Commissioner to replace the retiring Samuel Odoi Sykes who served as High Commissioner of Ghana to Canada from February 2002 to August 2006. Odoi Sykes also replaced Oliver Lawluvi who served for nearly seven years as Ghana’s High Commissioner in Canada.

Defections

I wish to draw the attention of whoever cares to know that defections of staff at the Ghana High Commissioner’s Residence in Ottawa are not new. It started way back in the late 1990s when two staff at the residence of H. E Oliver Lawluvi, the then High Commissioner, run away from the residence and claimed refugee status with Immigration Canada claiming that they were being “abused” at the residence by the High Commissioner’s family. Those two persons are still living in Canada. For those who have been putting political spinning on the recent “defection”, Oliver Lawluvi was an NDC appointee. In 2003, another household employee of then High Commissioner Odoi Sykes, another cook, also ran away to Immigration Canada and claimed refugee status citing abuse from the High Commissioner’s family. Odoi Sykes’ family consisted of himself and his wife, two very old people who were the only ones living at that residence. That employee who defected is also still living in Canada. His refugee hearing ended a few months ago. The same defection pattern has been repeated in the case of this latest High Commission residence employee, Samuel Amponsah, who ran away from the residence when the High Commissioner was away in Halifax, on Canada’s eastern coast on official assignment. His defection poses a lot of questions because he went to the Protocol section of the Canadian Ministry of External Affairs, the liaison office for foreign accredited diplomatic missions in Ottawa. This shows that this guy was really “coached” by some insiders of the High Commission. Why? Now read on:

When Dr. Amoakohene arrived at Ghana’s High Commission in Ottawa, she found the place in a financial mess. Some officials at the Mission, notably Minister -Counselor Susan Annobil and the Accounting Officer, Yaw Yirenkyi were engaged in financial improprieties. The Mission’s finances were in a mess. A typical example: The High Commissioner discovered that Ms. Annobil had been improperly paid a salary arrears amounting to C$15, 980 from her promotion from an A2 officer to an A1 officer. Although Annobil’s promotion was effective March 15, 2006, Yirenkyi had paid her salary arrears from 19th September 2005. In a letter dated August 15th, 2007 which was copied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a copy of which has been obtained by this writer, the High Commissioner, Dr. Amoakohene asked Ms. Annobil to refund to the Mission’s account the over-payment of CDN$15,980. That was her capital “sin”: ensuring financial accountability. She also caused to be stopped a Health Insurance payment of about CDN255 a month that was paid by the Mission on behalf of a 25 year-old son of Ms. Annobil, contrary to the government’s directive of paying insurance for the dependants of Mission staff only up the age of maturity, (18 years). A lot of money therefore had been expended illegally by the Mission on behalf this “dependant” boy for over two years. Earlier on she has also caused to be stopped a flat payment of $300 that was paid to the four drivers at the Mission on top of their salaries of $2500 a month just for being drivers. A look at the “Rumour Mill” article says that drivers at the Mission are aggrieved. Sure they should be for not getting paid undue allowances.

The High Commission’s finances were so badly managed that the High Commissioner called for an audit. Two audit officers were sent in from Accra to audit the books early in the summer of 2007. The High Commissioner had specifically asked the Auditor General to look at all aspects of the Mission’s finances with regard to “cash management, budgetary control, procurement, expendable and non-expendable property”, among others. The two audit staff (names withheld for now) came to Ottawa and lived with some of the staff of the Mission who were been audited although they had been paid hotel allowances for the nearly one month that they spent in Ottawa. In the end they colluded with the Accounting Officer and other staff persons and did a very shoddy job. The High Commissioner Dr. Amoakohene had reason to send a letter to the Auditor General’s Department in Accra copied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs drawing the attention of the Auditor General to the lapses in the report issued by the two audit officers. She called for another audit to review the auditors’ report. Obviously the affected staff at the High Commission are not happy with this move. Ms. Annobil has refused to cooperate with the High Commissioner since her arrival in Canada. The situation became so bad that the High Commissioner called for the transfer of Ms. Annobil from the Mission. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried out their own investigations into the allegations and decided to transfer Ms. Annobil. As I write she is on her way to the Ghana Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia. It is clear from the foregoing that the staff at the Ghana High Commission in Ottawa have a lot of axe to grind with this new “Iron Lady” who wouldn’t connive at the shaddy financial stuff going on at the Mission. The staff decided to hit back at her and they found the weakest link in the High Commissioner’s set-up, the young 29 year-old cook. They got him briefed when the High Commissioner was out of town on official duties and convinced him that if he wanted to stay in Canada permanently, they would show him the way. I have it on authority the identities of the Mission staff that coached Samuel Amponsah, the cook, on what story to tell and took him to the Protocol section of the Ministry of External Affairs in Ottawa to claim refugee status citing abuse from the High Commissioner’s household including a ridiculous claim that he had been mercilessly beaten by the 11 year-old son of the High Commissioner who had ripped his shirt. Yes, a 29 year-old man standing at attention to be “mercilessly beaten” by a 11 year-old boy!!! I pity this young man who has allowed himself to be used this way by other unscrupulous people to fight their dirty wars. He was paid as much as CDN2050 every month. How many people in Canada with Master’s Degrees earn that much money? He “defected” from the house on Thursday November 15, 2007, a few hours after he got his pay cheque.

There is allegation from the “Rumour Mill” story that the High Commissioner has taken some eight thousand dollars from the cook. The fact of the matter from investigations is that he had been given accommodation at the High Commissioner’s Residence. He cooked and ate there. He used the toileteries there. For all his living expenses, he was charged CDN500 a month. Is that too much to ask? Now that he is out of the house, he is going to be paid a maximum of CDN679.00 a month welfare allowance by the government of Canada. Compare that to the CDN2050 he was paid every month working for the High Commissioner. I believe that when the reality kicks in he will realize that those that advised him to take the action he did had deceived him. They promised him that the government will give him a house. Too bad, it doesn’t work that way in Canada. He was promised that the Canadian government will immediately give him papers to bring over his family. It does not work that way either. His case will be referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board and it may take up to two or three years to hear his case. In the meantime he would not remain on the welfare roll for all that time. He will be asked to look for a job. And we will be watching what job he will get that will pay him the equivalent of CDN2050 a month. This man has shown ungratefulness extra ordinary to the High Commissioner who brought him from obscurity in Ghana to enable him have a good life in Canada. That is her reward!

The correspondence I have in my possession show that the cook, Mr. Amponsah was first taken to the External Affairs Office in June 2007, a week after the High Commissioner requested the transfer of Ms. Annobil from the Mission. The High Commissioner was then out in Northern Canada on an official mission. They delivered the final coup de grace in the second week of November when the High Commissioner was again out of town in Halifax on another diplomatic assignment. Ms. Annobil has made no secret of the fact that she would not go away quietly and the High Commissioner is paying the price with the smear campaign being waged.

The questions that need answers are these: why is it that it is always the staff that are brought over from Ghana to work at the Mission that defects? Why do the local staff who work in the same residences or Mission not allege any abuse? There is one Spanish woman that has worked at the High Commissioner’s Residence in Ottawa for over 15 years and has never complained of “abuse”.

Something really dirty and sinister is going on at the Ghana High Commission in Ottawa. Dr. Amoakohene has decided to clean up the mess and this certainly is not sitting well at all with a lot of people. I will definitely be prepared to appear before any committee initiated by the Government of Ghana to present the facts as I know them of the very shaddy deals going on at the Ghana High Commission in Ottawa. If the government is serious about its “zero tolerance for corruption”, it should commend Dr. Amoakohene for taking the fight seriously and give her the tools and support to clean up the real mess that hangs around the Mission in Ottawa, Canada.

Stay tuned for other series in this saga very soon!!