Fadi & Co Misfired 'Bigtime' On Ibrahim "Tax-Fraud" Allegation!

This is sequel to my previous article captioned, "To Suggest That Ibrahim Mahama Should Be Prosecuted - Let Alone Jailed - Is Epitome Of Blatant Ignorance"

If anything at all, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, the MP for Assin Central, compromised the sacred function of the pertinent state institution/s to deal with the apparent 'tax evasion' by CEO of Egineers & Planners, Mr. Ibrahim Mahama. That is to say, if we should afford Kennedy Agyapong the benefit of the doubt that indeed there was wrong doing on the part of the businessman, the best Hon. Ken would have done, was to provide the otherwise evidence of tax-fraud, in secrecy to appropriate organ to deal with Mr. Ibrahim according to constitutionally established Ghanaian anti-fraud laws. But the fact that Hon. Ken could make such wild allegation openly on Tv set smacks the usual unfornate propaganda of calumny on national body politics, the so-called "gutter politics"

But George Loh, former legislator of North Dayie, put the mirror squarely in front of us so that we could appreciate the fact that there wasn't any doubt about the real reflection of what exactly transpired between Ghana Revenue Authority and the business guru. Mr. Loh made two important assertions to clarify things: 1; he actually won a case in our court similar in nature. 2; He argued that when a businessman's cheque bounces, it wasn't the same as a scumbag who goes about defrauding people with dud cheques and the Ghanaian Judge agreed.

Now, the former MP of North Dayie's assertion is what we call in hispanic judicial parlance as "no hay mas pregunta." I don't know if we have same emphatic Ghanaian judicial puntuation which is used to hammer home a point, to wit, 'I rest my case.' In other words, Loh's statement was enough to dispel any figment of doubt on the mind of his colleagues on JoyFm News Programme and those "concerned" Ghanaians, it takes a little bit of extra urge to figure it out - myself as businessman, I have none

Needless to say, Ghana Revenue Authority just like any other internal revenue service elsewhere has the authority/power to place embargo on Mr Ibrahim's assets and aution them to defray existing debt but the stage where the tax official could do that is not reached yet. So I find it be 'administrational tergiversation' that EOCO detained and interrogated the CEO of engineers and Planners. Curiously EOCO actions came the same time the actual president was hosting former presidents. The fact that time of hosting the all former presidents coincided with the detention of Mr. Mahama made many of us to wonder, rather than a call of national atmosphere of conviviality, there was orchestrated agenda to embarrass the immediate past president John Dramani Mahama--the beleaguered businessman's brother

I sincerely expected Messrs. Fadi Dabbosusi, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako and lawyers: Bentil and Ampaw not only to question the intentions of EOCO, also, whether the detention and interrogation of Mr. Ibrahim was in line with constitutional provision of Ghana. For starters, it is national security (police, BNI and military personnel) who are equipped with dissuading tactics to detain and/or psychological techniques to interrogate.

In other words, EOCO detention and interrogation of Mr. Mahama was violation of his constitutional rights. Even if EOCO is mandated by law to detain and interrogate any individual, group or organisation, that legislation must carefully be reviewed. Am compelled to believe a report making rounds that EOCO unilaterally took that decision on its own, and that, GRA didn't pass on any directive to it, because as l said earlier, GRA has its own power of embargo and forfeiture hence wouldn't need intervention of Economic and Organized Crime Ofice(EOCO)

At worst, it would have forwarded the case to court as we have seen SSNIT do. In the West, SSNIT(social security), municipal assembly together with internal Revenue service, all have power of embargo and forfeiture, so l expect those in my motherland also do. The question that majority of Ghanaians especially those in the Diaspora are asking is; "why all anti-corruption organs in the country have failed, that is, why hadn't they been able to even curb corruption to minimal level if we don't want to talk about total elimination of corruption? And the answer is, the likes of EOCO etc. - am surmising- are either even more corrupt than the individuals and institutions they are purported to be policing or they are merely incompetent. That is why l have suggested to the new president, Nana Addo that, save the yet to be established prosecutors office is implemented in the manner that answers why the current anti-corruption institutions have failed, it will fail too

I reproach EOCO for what l consider as face-saving act to cover up perennially institutional failures. Failures that led to invitation of experts from abroad to investigate recent rush of fire in the country. The basic steps of any fire investigation is what is denominated as "point of origin." That is where the fire started, is the basic clue of any comprehensive fire investigations. Myself, not fire service personnel know that. So l was mesmerized and ground away in utter disbelief at the news that we had intention to invite experts from abroad to investigate "common" fire

Is there any wonder why the findings are not made known to the public since the investigation concluded many years ago? Am alleging that the results are what any well-meaning Ghanaian could envisage; substandard wires from China, bad connection and overloading of electrical appliances in electricity connection point might have dominated the findings. The findings no matter how embarrassing they may be, must be made public because the bills were footed with public (pardon the pun) purse

As for yet to be established prosecutors office, my advice to the president is take and train some state attorneys and national security, possibly BNI officials in anti-corruption forensic investigation. In that, national security will do 90% of the work while state attorneys will do 10% in court. And should we need experts, don't hesitate to use university professors we have all over the country. That is how the accolade of 'police state' came into being in the Western countries. After all, wasn't the police who arrested, indicted and arraigned former french president Nicholas Sarkozy before court? In Israel, police are about to indict Prime Minister Netanyahu's wife, the First Lady before court, in Spain, the police haven't arrested PM Mariano Rajoy because of national pride. But the police has hinted something to that effect. Now the question is could any civil institutions anywhere of the type "EOCO" dream of arresting a pet of the aforementioned personalities and your guess will be as mine

Finally, no discerning Ghanaian writing about issues that bother on national interests can afford to miss out the raging NPP war against Galamsey. Fortunately the debate on JoyFM Newsfiles programme was also centered on the War Against Galamsey of which l agreed with the panalists irrespective individual stance. I commend the sector minister Hon. Peter Amewu and most especially the president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his courage

I believe, within the dynamics of NPP, there was consensus that enough of the arm-twisting; when foreigners take advantage of hospitality of our people, first it was Europeans who came to exploit our natural resources and sold our people into slavery, and now we have the Chinese following the steps of European colonial masters with their illegal activities of surface mining called Galamsey

But that resolve is in sharp contradiction with solicitation of Mr. Fadi Dabbousi to belittle our people and institutions. Due to "presumption of innocence" stipulated by our constitution, Mr. Fadi should have captioned his article using the word "prosecute" instead of "jail" in his reference to allegedly Mr. Ibrahim Mahama "tax fraud"

Agobodzo, Richard
Agobodzo Richard is concerned Ghanaian businessman based in Europe. You can contact Agobodzo Richard through [email protected] or www.facebook.com/Agobodzo Richard