Grace Bediako 'sacked'

The Chronicle can state that Government Statistician, Dr. Grace Bediako has been relieved of her position at the Ghana Statistical Service by President Mills, but in a very diplomatic way, so as not to attract the furor that has characterised the Woyome issue, which still remains an albatross around the neck of the government.

The President directed a few days ago that Dr. Grace Bediako take her accumulated leave of six months under very bizarre circumstances, when she was on an official assignment in South Africa.

In what appears to be a well-orchestrated coup against the soft-spoken Government Statistician, the Board, headed by Prof. Francis Dodoo, hurriedly organised a meeting a day before Dr. Grace Bediako was due to return from her official assignment.

At that meeting, Dr. Grace Bediako's second deputy, Dr. Philomena Nyarko, was asked to take over as acting Government Statistician. The first Deputy Statistician, Mr. Opoku Manu Asare, was also asked to proceed on leave.

These shocking directives come only a few months to the release of the 2010 Population Census. The Chronicle gathered that the Ghana Statistical Service had scheduled the 4 th of April, 2012, to announce the final census figures, but this is set to further delay, due to the changes.

In the absence of the two top officials at the Statistical Service, Mr. Baah Wadie and Agyeman Kofi Duah have been appointed to serve as deputies to Dr. Philomena Nyarko, now acting Government Statistician.

Information gathered by The Chronicle indicates that the plot to get the soft-spoken, but firm and incorruptible Dr. Grace Bediako out of the Statistical Service has been the obsession of some top echelons of the government, ever since the National democratic Congress (NDC) took over from the previous administration.

When this paper broke the story two days ago, our information was that Dr. Grace Bediako was being hounded out of the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) for her refusal to alter the 2010 census figures in some of the regions to favour the ruling government.

The paper has also gathered that as part of the plot, the government has decided to fill the top positions at the GSS with its personnel, so it has full control of the activities of the Service.

The Chronicle learnt that for some time now, the board has been breathing down the neck of Dr. Bediako to manipulate the figures, but she has since developed a tough skin against these forces, and the only way to kick her out, was asking her to proceed on leave.

Meanwhile, the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) says these are some of the strategies adopted by the ruling NDC, intended to manipulate the census figures to justify the creation of additional constituencies and districts, ahead of this year's elections.

According to the National Chairman of the NPP, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, the timing for these major changes to be done at the Statistical Service is very strange, if not a clandestine attempt by the NDC to steal the forthcoming elections.